Big users in withdraw1 give grid a vital dose of energy.

Last July, thousands of people in Queens were left in the dark as the mercury rose. Hospitals were challenged and seniors and young children suffered in the grip of health threatening heat.

Businesses had to shut down showing an exodus that exposed our vulnerability to a new and mysterious force in our lives--the electricity power grid.

While Queens suffered in the sweltering as a result a 10-day blackout, we learned that there is a proverbial light at the end of the electricity grid: an approach called "demand response," which the new Federal Energy Policy Act has offered as one of the solutions to help fend off full-scale, or 'rolling' blackouts that can occur when consumers tap out more electricity than exists in the often overtaxed system.

Demand Response is an electricity incentive program where energy consumers--typically larger property or business owners--commit in advance to shut off or curtail their non-essential electricity use when the threat of a blackout or major power outage looms.

Under these initiatives--currently offered in 44 states, including Massachusetts, New York and California--participants receive a small payment whether they are called upon to cut back on their power consumption or not-and all consumers stand to receive the benefit of ongoing electric power. Larger energy consumers become 'virtual power plants', able to provide a vital dose of sorely needed electricity to the broader grid--and keep the lights on.

Does it work? Last summer, while Queens endured the effects of major power outage in a heat wave Boston and New York City, as well as many other communities across the nation, took advantage of the demand response program.

With the grid being taxed to the max, numerous demand response providers in these cities, including Macys, Morgan Stanley, Starwood Hotels and CB Richard Ellis, were put on high alert on many different occasions to stave off potential blackouts or brownouts.

Last summer, the S.O.S. was issued multiple times and participants kicked in to prevent what could have turned off all the lights off in Manhattan and elsewhere.

These big energy consumers have enough power in their arsenals to keep the lights burning in tens to hundreds of thousands of homes for a year, let alone on a day or two when the mercury is off-the-charts. They were more than happy to give back a small portion of their non-essential capacity to answer the call.

By answering the call, demand response participants are also helping to prevent unnecessary electricity price hikes. Until recently, the reality or threat of rolling blackouts across the land would lead local power authorities to turn on expensive "peaking" power plants to pump more high cost electricity onto the grid than needed, potentially raising rates for all consumers, regardless of their consumption.

Instead, with demand response, we are literally giving large energy consumers the power to keep the system going in times of crisis, and by not relying on power plant bailouts, also providing a viable means to help keep our electricity rates in check.

In effect, with demand response, energy consumers are creating a literal electricity supply valve that could replace the need, over the next decade, for dozens of new power plants fueled by natural gas, gasified coal and nuclear energy--an outcome that would put our nation on much more environmentally and economically sound ground.

And it's not just the big guys who have the power and potential to keep the lights from going out and electricity prices from going up.

There are growing signs of a broader consumer movement afoot, where even the smallest residential customers are practicing their own version of demand response, and seizing more control of their usage and energy dollars in the process. They're doing it by tapping into incentive based "time-of-use" pricing programs, offered by an increasing number of utilities around the country.

Time-of-use pricing offers a similar incentive to customers who save by racking up cell phone minutes during off-peak hours.

By shifting some of our electricity usage to times when demand is lower and taking such simple steps as running the dishwasher in the later evening and running the air conditioner in the early morning hours to "pre-cool" a home, consumers can see a savings on their electric bills, even if they use just as much electricity as before.

Compare that to traditional pricing, where you pay for what you use, regardless of when you use it, and where there is no dollars and cents incentive to do better. Time-of-use pricing rewards consumers for doing better, recognizing as we must, an "inconvenient truth"--that electricity cannot be stored, so unless we use those megawatts more wisely, we all stand to pay a big price.

The good news is that consumers of all stripes have an opportunity to take more control of their energy future--and it appears they are ready and willing to do so.

In a pilot study of a time-of-use electricity program conducted by Puget Sound Energy (PSE) of Washington state, the state's largest electric utility, customers, spurred on by savings, shifted about four percent of their electricity usage from peak to off-peak.

That may not seem like a lot, but had such a shift in demand been in place in California, it could have measurably improved matters, during the headline-grabbing energy crisis that befell that state in 2000.

Other studies have found that if peak demand were to fall nationwide by 5%--similar to the results we are seeing with time-of-use programs--some $10-15 billion in electricity could be saved and result in delaying or avoiding the construction of up to 250 power plants.

All of this should compel us to make demand response a key component of our nationwide energy policy, by enhancing existing programs and making them available to all consumers, both big and small.

It's a bright idea on the path to avoiding blackouts during the summer, and beyond, it's good for the environment, good for the economy and good for our wallets, too.

By literally shifting more power into the hands of consumers--giving them the chance to be part of the energy solution and not the problem--demand response is also in the best tradition of our democracy.

BY MIKE GORDON, PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER, CONSUMERPOWERLINE