Is the home greener on the other side of the fence?

The Sacramento Municipal Utility District wants its customers to know, figuring they'll likely conserve more electricity to keep up with the Joneses, or strive to do one better than them.

In the nation's first experiment of its kind, SMUD has 35,000 randomly selected customers receiving a monthly "home electricity report" with bar graphs comparing their consumption with the neighborhood average.

A happy-face icon goes in an energy efficiency score box to households with lower-than-average meter readings. Make that two smiley faces for 20 percent of them who had the lowest usage.

Those given the sad face theoretically will be motivated to improve their standing, following the report's energy-saving tips.

Midway through the yearlong trial, the neighborhood comparisons appear to be yielding the desired results – and then some – spurring Los Angeles, San Diego and the Puget Sound region of Washington state to follow SMUD's lead, said Ali Crawford, the project manager.

"We had hoped to save 2 to 3 percent in monthly energy costs for customers, and it looks like we have far exceeded that," Crawford said. "The savings are increasing each month. We haven't plateaued."

The utility has received about three dozen comments from customers, half of them requesting more information and the rest evenly split between positive and negative, said Crawford, a marketing specialist. SMUD left nothing to chance in formulating the mailer so it would be well received.

"Every element of the report was researched, every word and graphic in the report was tested with real customers in home interviews that lasted several hours," Crawford said.

Denise Thomson, a real customer in Citrus Heights, would have given the market testers an earful.

"I feel like I'm in grade school with my little unhappy face," a miffed Thomson said.

Thomson was one of seven customers who responded to a Bee online request for comment earlier this week. All had scored below average on energy efficiency in their neighborhood and criticized the rating system as unfair and unproductive.

"Most of our neighbors are older people living by themselves. We have up to seven people in my house most times. You're talking apples and oranges," said Thomson, who considers herself "environmentally conscious."

Actually, the energy-efficiency comparison is not limited to immediate neighbors but takes in "approximately 100 occupied homes nearby that are similar in size to yours and have the same heat type as you," the mailer states.

Designers of the study wanted the comparison neighborhood to be large enough to avoid finger-pointing and to keep households with exceptionally high or low electric bill from skewing the results, Crawford said.

She said the steady decline in electricity usage among the test group suggests that the neighborhood comparisons are working.

"There is some psychology that says we want to understand what's normal, and we want to try to stay within the norm," she said.

Some have lashed out at the suggestion that they do not fit within the norm.

• "Every time I get one of these reports, I start swearing," said Jo Southard, who lives with her cat in the Pocket area of south Sacramento. "I do my part. Don't tell me I'm inefficient."

• "I get frustrated and throw it out," said Kathy O'Neil, who lives with her two teenagers in a 1,300-square-foot condominium near California State University, Sacramento. "I changed all the light bulbs to the energy-efficient ones. My thermostat is set at 83 for the summer. … What in the world am I supposed to do? I'm not willing to take cold showers."

• "It's a lousy thing to load me with a bunch of guilt," said Elaine Jacobsen of north Sacramento County. "They are pushing this whole conservation thing beyond the point of being helpful."

Crawford said some customers have complained that the utility is trying to guilt-trip them into not buying an extra refrigerator or installing a pool.

"I tell them we're just providing you information so you know what those extras really cost," Crawford said.

"I'm also telling everybody that if we all used as much electricity as we wanted, we would harm the environment and have to raise prices."

Call The Bee's Chris Bowman, (916) 321-1069.