PES goes door-to-door to conserve vital energy.

Don't be surprised if you open your door in the next few months to a salesman who points at your light board and offers you something for nothing.

Public Energy Solutions is a consultancy firm offering energy upgrades--often for free--to businesses in select areas of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Westchester in an attempt to reduce 46 megawatts off the states overtaxed electrical grid as part of the Con Edison's $70 million permanent load reduction program.

The program follows on the heels of last year's record breaking electrical demand which peaked at 13,141 megawatts and took out the power in Long Island City and Flushing, Queens.

The grid may draw energy to power the city from 300 plants across the state.

When the city operates with less power, not every plant needs to provide energy, and those that are used do not always operate at maximum capacity. But when all plants are drawn from those included may be some of the "dirty power plants," that utilize fossil fuels like oil coal and natural gas and are only 30 % efficient.

Con Edison deals with energy after it runs from the grid through major transmission lines into major stations and finally substations throughout the city.

The program targets the places where load growth at these substations is expected to exceed capacity of the substation in the future, Hartman said.

Reducing load growth can be achieved through simple practicality. As one of three vendors contracted for the program PES reps examine the electrical equipment at businesses they visit, then offer new solutions to pro mote energy efficiency--sometimes, as in the case of lighting upgrades-for free. "Often it is just a matter of taking old, inefficient equipment and putting in new efficient equipment to provide that service to the community," said Robert Lesch, Jr. Vice President--Marketing and Sales for PES.

Other technologies do come with an initial price tag attached to them. However signing up for the program could save businesses anywhere from a couple of hundred dollars peryear to several hundred thousand dollars per year, Lesch said.

PES efforts will be concentrated on select areas of Manhattan and Brooklyn and will eventually be extending into Westchester including the areas. PSE has exclusive rights to these areas from Con Edison.

"There is a healthy bit of skepticism when we first come out to businesses and tell them we are going to give them new lighting for free as you can imagine.

"But once we get in there and show them what we are about, they lose that skeptism," Lesch said.