At first blush, that is almost as hard to imagine as Chevron suggesting that you drive less, or Starbucks issuing media alerts that call for everyone to cut down on the caffeine.
But Rocky Mountain Power - until just recently, Utah Power - is serious about asking customers to cut back on electricity. Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. has directed a cut in energy use by state government and has called on everyone to voluntarily conserve now in hopes of avoiding involuntary power outages later.
Such outages have stressed parts of California's power system past the breaking point and become an issue in this year's governor's campaign.
The United States continues to lack anything that could be called a national energy policy, and the nation's power grid is clearly a disaster, or a giant target for terror attack, waiting to happen.
Efforts to integrate and back up regional and national grids have been, well, gridlocked, for years, as interested parties argue theory and practice and winners and losers.
Meantime, little things can mean a lot.
Power usage continues to soar, and not only due to power-hogging air conditioners in hot weather. In San Diego, the local power utility has noted that one megawatt of power, which used to be enough to power 1,000 houses, now provides sufficient juice to a mere 650 plugged-in and logged-on homes. Even with appliances increasing in energy efficiency, houses are bigger and use more energy in many ways.
On the positive side, Rocky Mountain Power notes that, if all of its customers who use air conditioners would move their thermostats up by 5 degrees, it would lift the equivalent of 200,000 homes off the shoulders of the power grid.
Other tricks include avoiding the use of heat-generating equipment - ovens, dryers - until after 8 p.m., or even after 10 p.m.
But, the experts say, don't go so far as to turn the AC off while you are at work and then turn it on again when you get home. Just raise it to 85 degrees before you go out, so that your cooling system will have a chance to get it under control when you get home.
Then someone might do the same for the national power grid.
