Stores try to cut electric bills

Shoppers at some Connecticut Sears and Kmart stores this summer could find themselves worrying about their eyesight, wondering if it truly did just get a lot darker inside.
But that dimming will be a sign of strain on the region’s power grid, not shoppers’ eyes.

Sears Holdings Corp. is announcing today the participation of nine stores in an emergency demand response program designed to decrease power use at peak times, when the power grid operator calls for a cut.

Sears Holdings Corp. is announcing today the participation of nine stores in an emergency demand response program designed to decrease power use at peak times, when the power grid operator calls for a cut.

“We’re doing it at stores where we have the technology to do this,” said Bryan Porcaro, Sears Holdings’ energy manager. The three Sears stores are in West Hartford, Danbury and Putnam; the Kmarts are in Cromwell, Waterbury, Vernon, Southbury, Watertown and Torrington.

The goal is to reduce those stores’ energy demand by 12 percent, Porcaro said, essentially by turning off every other light and lowering the air conditioning an average of two degrees.

Connecticut Post