Since the early 1970s, electricity consumption per capita in California has stayed nearly constant, while rising steadily for the United States as a whole. In the context of global energy policy making today, where both climate and energy security concerns play an increasingly large role, it is important to understand the factors behind California’s success in stabilizing electricity consumption. In this paper we use empirical data to estimate the fraction of the difference between California and the United States owing to policy independent characteristics such as climate or demographics, and the fraction that may be due to policy measures aimed at saving energy. We analyze both recent and historical data. For 2001, we find that up to about 23% of the overall difference between California and the United States could be due to policy measures, the remainder being explained by various structural factors.