The cold snap at the start of this year's summer season has not deterred Utah Power's annual message to customers: turn up air conditioning thermostats and turn off all unnecessary lights, appliances and electronic equipment.

As temperatures rise, so too does the state's peak demand for electricity.

Utah Power is hoping that when temperatures reach triple digits, customers will take notice and use less electricity.

Now in its sixth year, the PowerForward campaign operates on a color-coded alert system, based on daily temperature and electricity demand.

Green power days indicate normal conditions. Yellow power days call for extra conservation during the hours of noon to 8 p.m. On yellow alert days, customers are urged to set their thermostats to 78 degrees or higher, cook food on outdoor grills instead of in electric ovens and run clothes dryers and dishwashers after 8 p.m.

Red power days indicate a critical situation, with possible outages.

Rich Walje, president of Utah Power, said Tuesday that the PowerForward program was more successful in its early years of implementation, when yellow alert days generated savings of roughly 90 to 100 megawatts of electricity. A megawatt is enough electricity to power 500 to 700 typical homes.

Since then, electricity savings from the alerts have fallen.

Part of the reason the response was higher in 2001 was because of the California energy crisis.

"It was on the evening news all the time," Walje said. "Everybody was really attuned to the fact that we had a shortage of energy and it was really critical for us to save. As that kind of faded from people's memory, I think they just sort of lost the focus on the value of the program."

Energy savings realized on yellow alert days in 2005 fell as low as 60 megawatts, Walje said.

Still, he said, the savings from 60 megawatts remain substantial, amounting to three distribution substations, or half of what a natural gas-fired peaking plant can generate. Walje said he would like to see savings from the PowerForward program reach 150 megawatts on a yellow alert day.

Another reason for the slackening response could be Utah's relatively cheap electricity. Only 11 other states had average residential electricity prices lower than Utah's in 2005, according to a report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In 2005, residential electricity rates in Utah rose to an average of 7.59 cents per kilowatt-hour, up from 7.21 cents per kwh in 2004, according to EIA.

Joining the call to conserve electricity was Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., who signed an executive order Tuesday establishing a policy for the state to increase energy efficiency by 20 percent by 2015.

"Our goal should be to also reduce peak use and encourage energy conservation," Huntsman said. "PowerForward is an important part of this effort."

For more information on the PowerForward program, go online to www.powerforward.utah.gov.

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E-mail: danderton@desnews.com