LIPA helping businesses save power

LIPA chief operating officer Michael D. Hervey told an audience at the Huntington Hilton Tuesday that when he got into the energy industry nearly 30 years ago, the idea was to "sell, sell, sell" electricity. These days, Hervey said, the refrain is different. "It's save, save, save" electricity. Hervey was at the podium at the last of three LIPA/National Grid seminars on ways to help companies save electricity.

LIPA has about 100,000 commercial customers, and in the last two years about 1 percent have signed up for the company's energy-efficiency programs, Hervey said. "It's just starting up," he said of the programs. "It's exactly where we want to be at this point" in terms of the numbers of commercial customers signed up, he said.

More than 500 people have attended the three LIPA/National Grid sessions. The first was March 10.

Tony Presti, a project coordinator at the Small Business Development Center at Farmingdale State College, said more small businesses have become interested in energy savings. The weak economy, Presti said, "is still biting hard at companies." For more information visit lipower.org.