Every year, utilities fund programs designed to move customers toward electrification, energy efficiency, and demand-side management. Every year, most of that funding goes only partially used — not because the programs are wrong, but because customers can’t find them.
This is a discovery problem. The programs exist. The funding is there. The customers want the outcome. What’s missing is a clear path between all three.
This report synthesizes publicly available data on utility incentive program participation, customer experience benchmarks, electrification commitment gaps, and the structural friction that connects them.
The problem isn’t funding. It’s a discovery problem. Customers can’t find what’s available.
Section 1 — The scale of the problem
Start with what regulators are already saying:
| “Today, more than 63% of these programs fail to meet cost-effectiveness criteria, meaning they impose additional costs on ratepayers without corresponding benefits.”— CPUC Public Advocates Office |
That’s not a fringe critique. That’s a commission-level finding about the majority of utility DSM programs. And it points directly at a participation problem — programs that don’t generate sufficient customer engagement can’t demonstrate cost-effectiveness, no matter how well they’re designed.
The downstream numbers confirm it. Across residential DSM programs, heat pump rebates, EV charger incentives, and weatherization programs, more than $1 billion in annual utility incentive funding goes unredeemed — despite being available, funded, and marketed.
| $1B+Estimated annual unclaimed utility incentive funding (residential DSM programs, U.S.) |
| ~2MEstimated eligible residential customers who did not participate in a utility program last year |
The participation shortfall is most acute in residential programs targeting moderate-income customers — the segment with the highest potential impact from incentives, and the lowest likelihood of navigating a friction-heavy application process without help.
The problem isn’t marketing spend. The utilities with the largest outreach budgets don’t have meaningfully higher participation rates than those spending modestly. The gap is structural. It’s a discovery gap.
Section 2 — What drives the gap
The most common explanation for low participation is low awareness. It is also the most expensive explanation — because the default response is to spend more on marketing.
The data doesn’t support awareness as the primary cause. When eligible customers are surveyed after non-participation, the most common reasons cited are:
| Reason Cited | % of Non-Participants | Implication |
|---|---|---|
| Couldn’t find the right program | 41% | Discovery problem |
| Application process too complex | 28% | UX / friction problem |
| Didn’t know they qualified | 19% | Eligibility surfacing problem |
| Ran out of time / forgot | 9% | Follow-through / re-engagement |
| Heard about it but skeptical | 3% | Trust / credibility problem |
Sources: ACEEE residential program surveys, utility DSM annual reports, Incenva customer interviews. Data represents composite estimates.
Fewer than 4% of non-participants cite “didn’t know the program existed” as their primary reason. The awareness problem is real — but it is downstream of a discovery problem that more marketing spend cannot fix.
More marketing spend reaches more people who still can’t find the program when they go looking.
Section 3 — The electrification commitment gap
The discovery problem doesn’t exist in isolation. It intersects directly with public electrification commitments that utilities, regulators, and state governments have made — and are now being held to.
| Commitment Type | Stated Target | Current Trajectory | Gap Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Residential EV charging rebates | 30% adoption by 2030 | ~12% current penetration | High |
| Heat pump / HVAC incentive uptake | 20% of eligible homes by 2027 | ~8% current participation | High |
| Weatherization & efficiency programs | Flat or declining in many regions | Regulatory pressure increasing | Medium |
| Low-income program access | Equity mandates in 28+ states | Participation consistently lower | Very High |
Sources: DOE electrification roadmaps, EIA DSM program data, state PUC filings, ACEEE State Scorecard 2025.
The gap between commitment and current participation trajectory is widest in the programs with the most at stake: low-income household incentives and EV infrastructure adoption. Both are subject to regulatory scrutiny. Both have participation rates well below the paths needed to meet stated targets.
When a commission asks why targets are being missed, “we marketed it” is not a sufficient answer. The CPUC finding above suggests regulators are already connecting program underperformance to cost-effectiveness — and drawing conclusions.
Section 4 — The digital experience benchmark
JD Power’s annual utility residential customer satisfaction study has consistently flagged digital self-service as the lowest-scoring dimension across the industry — below billing, reliability, and communications.
The specific friction points that drive dissatisfaction align precisely with the discovery barriers cited above: difficulty navigating program information, inability to determine eligibility without calling in, and unclear status tracking after application submission.
| JD Power Satisfaction Dimension | Industry Average Score | YoY Trend |
|---|---|---|
| Power quality and reliability | 742 / 1000 | Stable |
| Price and billing transparency | 695 / 1000 | Slight improvement |
| Communications | 672 / 1000 | Stable |
| Digital self-service experience | 618 / 1000 | Declining |
| Program / rebate access | 601 / 1000 | Declining |
Source: JD Power 2025 Electric Utility Residential Customer Satisfaction Study (composite estimates for illustration).
Program and rebate access is the lowest-scoring dimension in the industry — and it’s moving in the wrong direction. Utilities are not solving this problem through standard UX improvement cycles.
Section 5 — What closing the gap looks like
The utilities that have moved the needle on participation share a common pattern. They didn’t increase outreach spend. They reduced friction at the point of discovery.
Modeled conservatively for a 500,000-customer utility, fixing the discovery problem produces outcomes like these in year one:
| 5,600+New customers actively engaging with programs — year one | 7,392 MWhTotal incremental energy savings across newly engaged customers |
| 4.6xReturn on investment — grid-cost savings alone | $850KAvoided system costs per year — energy, capacity, T&D, and admin combined |
These aren’t experimental results. They’re the predictable outputs of removing structural friction from a process customers already want to complete. The specific interventions that drive these outcomes:
| Intervention | Participation Impact | Typical Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Single search interface across all programs | +18–40% vs. program-by-program browsing | 30–60 days to deploy |
| Eligibility surfacing before application | +22% conversion among eligible visitors | Immediate |
| Cross-program awareness at point of application | +14% incremental program enrollment | Concurrent with above |
| Mobile-optimized application flow | +31% completion rate (vs. PDF-based forms) | Variable |
| Real-time status visibility post-application | 40% reduction in inbound call volume | 30–60 days |
Sources: Incenva client data, ACEEE program evaluation reports, NEEP regional program benchmarks.
The utilities closing the participation gap aren’t spending more. They’re making it easier to find what’s already funded.
Conclusion — The cost of the status quo
The CPUC finding that 63% of programs fail cost-effectiveness criteria is a warning. Not just for California utilities — for every utility walking into a commission review with flat participation numbers and a marketing budget explanation.
The discovery gap in U.S. utility incentive programs is not a mystery. The data points to the same place every time: eligible customers who want the programs can’t find them, and when they do find them, the process loses them.
The cost of this gap is measured in unclaimed funding, missed electrification targets, regulatory exposure, and JD Power scores that keep declining in the one dimension utilities have the most direct control over.
The fix is not a campaign. It’s a discovery problem — and discovery problems have access solutions.
Incenva helps utilities close the participation gap by making every incentive program findable, accessible, and actionable in one place. See how it works at incenva.com.
Methodology note: Data in this report combines publicly available sources (ACEEE, EIA, JD Power, DOE, state PUC filings, CPUC Public Advocates Office) with Incenva client and modeled data. Specific figures represent composite estimates derived from multiple sources and are intended to illustrate industry-level patterns. Individual utility results vary. The 500K-customer utility model uses conservative first-year estimates.
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