California regulators on Thursday gave the state's three largest utilities approval to spend a total of nearly $350 million on energy conservation measures called demand-response.

The California Public Utilities Commission voted to approve about $188.8 million for Edison International's (EIX) electric utility to spend on demand-response programs over the next three years, with approval for PG&E Corp.'s (PCG) utility to spend about $109 million and Sempra Energy's (SRE) electric utility to spend about $51.6 million.

Among the contracts included in the budgets are contracts that demand-response provider Comverge Inc. (COMV) has signed with each of the three utilities, which together are worth more than $75 million, said Comverge President Mike Picchi. Southern California Edison has two contracts with demand-response providers EnerNOC Inc. (ENOC) and Atlantic Energy Resources for a total of $38.8 million, according to the CPUC.

- By Cassandra Sweet, Dow Jones Newswires; 415-439-6468; cassandra.sweet@dowjones.com