Southern California Gas Modernizes Customer Payments with Choice Digital

As the nation’s largest natural gas distribution utility, Southern California Gas is pursuing a mission to become the cleanest, safest, and most innovative energy infrastructure company in America. To support this transition, SoCalGas needed a modern, flexible payment platform to more efficiently deliver incentives and rebates to customers participating in energy efficiency programs.

Southern California Gas partnered with Choice Digital to streamline payment delivery, reduce administrative costs, and improve access for all participating customers, while increasing transparency and regulatory confidence.

SoCalGas's legacy check-based disbursement process created friction for both customers and internal teams:

• Tens of thousands of paper checks were mailed annually, driving significant operational expense.

• Manual workflows slowed delivery and created avoidable support tickets.

• Limited visibility into payment status made issue resolution slow and resource-intensive.

• Participants without traditional banking access were disadvantaged.

In short, the old system was costly, slow, and inequitable.

Southern California Gas partnered with Choice Digital to modernize its payment operations and expand access to incentives and rebates. Choice Digital’s flexible disbursement platform enabled SoCalGas to offer modern payment experiences that work for every participant demographic.

With Choice Digital, SoCalGas was able to:

• Reduce payment costs by eliminating high-volume paper check printing and postage.

• Expand payment choice by offering ACH, push-to-debit, prepaid, and digital wallet options.

• Engage under- and unbanked customers through inclusive payment methods.

• Increase transparency with centralized tracking, audit history, and compliance controls.

• Meet regulatory expectations with purpose-built reporting and oversight tools.

Modernizing incentive delivery produced measurable operational and customer experience improvements:

• 50,000 paper checks eliminated annually, significantly lowering operational costs.

• 81% of SoCalGas customers preferred modern payment options, improving satisfaction and utilization.

• Greater equity through expanded access for under- and unbanked participants.

• Improved transparency and compliance for internal teams and regulatory stakeholders.

By partnering with Choice Digital, SoCalGas transformed its traditional check-based process into a modern digital disbursement system that reaches more customers, operates more efficiently, and maintains strong regulatory and reporting alignment.

This shift has helped Southern California Gas expand program access, improve customer outcomes, and continue leading California’s transition toward cleaner, more equitable energy.