The Public Utilities Commission released a proposal Monday that would require the state's utilities, including Pacific Gas & Electric, to create a unified, long-term energy efficiency plan to meet the state's greenhouse-gas reduction goals.

But the plan is less a specific set of mandates than a call to arms for the utilities from the agency that regulates them.

"We have the most aggressive energy-efficiency goals in the country. We need to have our utilities thinking long-term and strategically," said Dian Grueneich, the commissioner who wrote the 148-page proposal along with Administrative Law Judge Kim Malcolm.

"This proposal seeks to make energy efficiency business as usual, a part of everyday life for California," Grueneich added.

The goal, according to the proposal, would be to achieve "market transformation" rather than short-term cuts in energy use.

The proposal will be presented at the PUC's Oct. 18 meeting. That starts a process which includes getting plans from utilities, a series of public hearings and an ultimate decision in September 2008.

Grueneich proposes that:

• All new homes built in California will be zero net energy by 2020; that is, produce as much energy as they use.

• All new commercial construction in the state be zero net energy by 2030.

• The design, installation and use of heating, ventilation and air-conditioning units be improved. Problems with these systems include "poor compliance with codes and standards, poor quality installations, (and the lack of) technologies that are tailored to specific climates," according to the proposal.

Building new subdivisions in California often takes seven to 10 years, from the start of the planning process to when homes are occupied, Grueneich said. That requires equally long-term planning to assure they use the most energy-efficient features such as solar panels, she said.

Grueneich urged the state's big utilities to work with local governments to achieve these goals. They could better coordinate the wide variety of energy-efficiency programs in use, she said, including the state's million solar roof program, which provides incentives to install solar panels in homes.

"They need to come back and tell us how to integrate them and make them customer friendly," she said.

PG&E said it would study the proposal. "Energy efficiency has proven to be the surest and quickest way to achieving our state's long-term climate-change goals," said PG&E spokesman Keely Wachs.

These programs are funded through utility rates.

"California is spending about $1 billion on energy efficiency," Grueneich said. "I anticipate that funding level will continue."

Still, she said, cutting back on energy use saves money because "it's so much more expensive to build power plants or new transmission lines."