Power and energy: Utilities boost efficiency and save money through energy-management systems, pumped storage, and fuel cells, while industrial producers pursue cogeneration

It has been the theme of the 1980s so far in the United States: utilities have not added nearly as much generating capacity as they had planned. In the 1960s and 1970s, demand for electricity grew at 7 percent per year, but in 1979 electricity consumption began to recede. The North American Electric Reliability Council, an industry group in Princeton, N.J., predicts total annual growth of but 2.7 percent through 1993. Rather than building new units, utilities are now concentrating on improving their efficiency and lowering their costs for power generation, transmission, and distribution.