August 21, 2015 (San Diego's East County) -- You can reap rewards for saving electricity on hot days with SDG&E’s Reduce Your Use Rewards program. Here’s how it works:

• Enroll in Reduce Your Use alerts so you know when to save.
• Receive a day-ahead alert
• Save energy between 11a.m. and 6 p.m. on the actual day
• Automatically earn rewards for saving
• View your reward credits online or on your bill

Looking for other ways to keep cooling costs down?

SDG&E offers programs to assist low-income ratepayers, those with medical needs, and FLEX alerts for energy savings

By Walt Meyer          

August 31, 2013 (San Diego)--Although temperatures have finally climbed to the normal range for the end of August, so far it’s been a mild summer, with temperatures below average, and for much of San Diego County, having things a few degrees cooler means not having to turn on the air conditioning. Hot summer days pose the biggest challenge to keeping the juice flowing without brownouts.

While renewable promise a long-term solution, in the short term, with San Onofre offline, likely permanently, the generating power of Southern California will be severely tested in a heat wave. As the region moves deeper into what is likely to a bad fire season, blazes near power lines also pose another imminent threats to the fragile power grid.

There is another good reason to try to keep the A/C off and switch to renewable: starting September 1, SDG&E is imposing a major rate increase. The rate hike will affect Tiers 3 and 4, but not Tiers 1 and 2 at all, which means many ratepayers in more temperate areas may not see any increase, but those who are usually have rates in the higher tiers will see their rates go up.