As for the load demand of electricity, I think that has changed forever. In the six years since the start of the financial mess, MANY significant changes have been made in the consumer and manufacturing areas.

First, Consumer side - TV's now have energystar ratings and use 1/20th the power that they did six years ago. CFL's and LED's are becoming coming place and the "electric heaters - that lit up" are being phased out. HVAC is more efficient. Appliances, washers, dryers and refrigerators have been been significantly improved and upgraded. We are seeing more wide spread availability for the Heatpump hotwater heaters. Residential energy use is dropping and will continue to drop (per capita) for probably the next four or five years.

On the business side, with margins being tight, companies look for savings where ever they can find them.

** Significant improvements have been made in most data centers to improve the cooling systems and direct "the cold" to only where it needs to go. Servers change their power use based on the load, light loads -- low power needs, heavy loads, more CPU's are brought online.

** Retail stores are also improving lights and their HVAC, saving considerable money.

** Process equipment/motors are moving to improved VSD, the companies are adding monitoring systems and they are squeezing out the wasted energy.

Much if the old equipment has gone to the scrap piles and are being melted down.

The Empire State Building is an example of a historical building that had owners who chose to improve the efficiency. They've seen a reduction in about 38% of their energy use. Those reductions will be lasting.