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Outreach program prevents outages

California launched the “Flex Your Power, Now!” program in summer 2004 to avert power outages through peak demand season.

This spin-off of the wildly successful Flex Your Power conservation education campaign teamed the California Independent System Operator with utilities and consumers to save electricity. On high demand days, when reserves dipped below required levels, CAISO notified utilities to announce a “Flex Your Power Now!” day, urging the general public and major energy users to practice voluntary conservation measures.

From mid-August, when program ads began running, six alerts were issued, and no outages occurred. At a Sept. 22 meeting with Flex Your Power and utilities, the president and vice president of CAISO thanked the program and participants, saying that it really helped and was a very, very useful tool for them.