The City of Santa Ana, Calif., will host an energy demand workshop for public entities on August 12. The workshop is designed to show how public agencies can make money by participating in their utilities’ demand-response programs.

Demand response is reducing or shifting electricity use in response to a utility company’s high electricity prices or when the provider has serious problems with meeting demand on their grid. Fleet and facilities managers, as well as other department heads, can choose how much load to reduce. Reduction methods include turning off or dimming lights, raising air conditioner temperature, cycling HVAC or motors, and turning off plug loads from computers and printers. Payments can be made to an agency for being available and not just when there are events.

The presentation and luncheon will be held from 11am to 1pm and will be led by Francie Finn from The Ramsay Group and Laurie Wiegand-Jackson from North American Power Partners. City and county Public Works directors, facilities managers, fleet managers, analysts, supervisors, and operations managers are invited to attend. To RSVP, e-mail franciefinn1@gmail.com.

Santa Ana fleet, facilities and central stores manager Rick Longobart is sponsoring the program.