200,000 Californians help the grid out in tough times and get paid for it. Now that's up in the air

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Nancy Lipps and her son John Lipps, in Dinuba, are one of more than 200,000 households in California signed up for a statewide program that pays them to help the grid when it’s very hot outside and electricity is at peak demand.They have a battery hooked up to their solar panels, and they share power from it in times of need.

It was an easy choice.“It gives back to our neighbors and helps make sure the grid is sustainable,” said John, 52, who works in the lawn care business launched by his parents.

It also provides the Lipps with a $300 credit at the end of the year for helping out.But those benefits could be coming to an end soon, due to budget cuts.

Letters signed by dozens of local officials, legislators from both houses, environmental groups and clean energy businesses have flooded in to try to save the program.The state’s Demand-Side Grid Management program works by tapping into an army of smart thermostats, EV chargers, and solar-powered batteries that are registered to share power or ramp down electricity use when the grid is strained.According to clean energy advocates, the program, launched in 2022, has been a resounding success, with the enrolled households creating more than an entire gigawatt of power when state needs it.

That’s about as much as a nuclear power plant provides, or enough to power San Francisco at peak demand.One health benefit of “demand response” programs like this is that they keep older, dirtier gas fired power plants from turning on.

“At the exact moment when the grid is dirtiest and most expensive to run, this program surges in with the cheapest and cleanest power,” said Leah Stokes, an energy expert and professor at UC Santa Barbara.Yet that’s in jeopardy as the program faces budget cuts for the third consecutive year.

A proposal from Gov.Gavin Newsom would stop funding it after 2026, and transfer its customers to a prog...