To Cut Demand for Electricity, Some Customers Agree to Unplug

(NYT) — Electricity use is up sharply this summer, but in a windowless room near Albany that is the nerve center of New York State’s grid, controllers have noticed that something else is not rising: peak load.

Peak load is the single hour of highest use in the course of the year, a condition for which the electric system is designed and which is the focus of utilities’ operating strategies and, sometimes, prayers. Driven by each new air-conditioner, computer and flat-screen television, peak load grew inexorably from the 1980s until the recession.

But it has stopped its climb, and experts say more is at work here than the stalled economy.

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