RIVERSIDE PUBLIC UTILITIES IMPLEMENTS “POWER PARTNER” VOLUNTARY CONSERVATION PROGRAM

6/14/2012

Riverside, Calif. – Ten businesses have already become “Power Partners” with Riverside Public Utilities (RPU) this summer by agreeing to reduce their energy demands through voluntary conservation efforts.

The Power Partner Program was put in place in response to the temporary closure of San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, a key Southern California energy resource. The program is RPU’s way of helping to reduce the demand on the regional energy grid and lessen the likelihood of temporary planned outages.

The California Independent System Operator (CAISO), which oversees the state energy grid, has said the closure of San Onofre will challenge its ability to provide sufficient power when demand for power is highest, which could trigger the outages, also known as “rolling blackouts.”

“Our first obligation is to provide safe, reliable power for our customer-owners,” said RPU General Manager David H. Wright. “Over the past decade we have built or procured power plants that provide enough local power to serve all emergency needs in the event of a disaster. But we also are tied to, and dependent upon, the state’s power grid, and we must help to support and maintain it as well.”

For the past month, RPU has been signing up commercial Power Partners who have volunteered in advance to shed or shift a specific amount of energy from their own power demands from July 1 to Sept. 30. All commercial electric customers with demands of at least 150 kilowatts (kW) per month, about the size of a fast food restaurant or larger, are welcome to participate through a planned power reduction agreement.

Current commercial Power Partners that have signed up for voluntary load shedding include Flexsteel, K&N Engineering, Mac Fam Inc., MBM Food Service, Pepsi Bottling Co., Riverside Auto Auction, Riverside Unified School District, K&N Engineering, Sherman Indian High School and Superform.

Businesses that participate in the Power Partner Program have access to one-on-one Account Manager support, and all Power Partners have the option to sign up for daily web, email and/or social media updates and notifications. These updates include up-to-the-minute accounts of each day’s power forecast from the CAISO and alerts of any pending rolling blackouts.

RPU also is asking its residential electric customers to become Power Partners. Residents can visit www.RiversidePublicUtilities.com to learn what they can do to make their homes more energy efficient.