When the Power Grid Needs Relief from High Demand, Here’s Who You Call

When electricity supplies are tight, being able to flip a few switches and save 38 gigawatt-hours is a pretty cool trick.

CPower Energy said this week that its customers reduced their grid electricity usage by that amount from January to September, which is enough to power about 8 million houses during a grid emergency.

The energy savings were more than double what the company’s customers recorded in all of 2024.

CPower is a leading vendor of demand response services, which means that it organizes large groups of clients who agree to reduce their energy use during periods of high demand. This is a resource whose value is increasing as utilities struggle to build power plants fast enough to keep up with the rising need for electricity for data centers and other large users.

• ICN Weekly