The Economic Value of Efficiency for California Water Service: Lower Water Bills

Report Demonstrates that Efficiency Saves Water and Money for Cal Water and Its Customers

This report focuses on two questions on how water efficiency and conservation have affected Cal Water and its customers:

(1) What would the impact on bills have been if no water efficiency or conservation had occurred?  

(2) Are bill-paying customers better or worse off?

The analysis in the report conservatively estimates that, from 2010 to 2022, customer bills in the 24 service districts studied would have been 1.2 to 20.5 percent higher had Cal Water not implemented water efficiency and conservation measures. The analysis is based on the service districts’ avoided variable production costs, and actual savings are likely higher given the potential for avoided and deferred capital costs in many districts. The relationship between conservation and water bills is not always well understood. Many water professionals and customers are perplexed by rate increases when system-wide water use has decreased and blame water conservation and efficiency for higher rates. But this report adds to many other AWE studies that show that water efficiency saves water and money for both utilities and their customers compared to what costs and associated bills would have been without efficiency.

This report, The Economic Value of Efficiency for California Water Service: Lower Water Bills, is available via a link provided below. This report was produced through a collaboration of the Alliance for Water Efficiency, M.Cubed, and A & N Technical Services.

Download the report.