The group, the Prince William Energy Coalition, hopes to defeat the proposed power lines Dominion Virginia Power wants to build across 40 to 50 miles of Fauquier, Prince William and Loudoun counties. Members of the group believe that if they can get Virginians to save enough electricity, they can prove that Dominion doesn't need the proposed lines, said coalition organizer Barbara Kessinger. "Our goal is for greater energy efficiency," Kessinger said. "Whether that alone will stop the power lines -- who knows?" Dominion's latest proposed route through Prince William County runs along its existing right of way, which begins just above the western Prince William-Loudoun border, near Forest Hill Estates.

It then passes through Sudley Park, borders the Manassas Na ional Battlefield Park, then cuts through the Linton Hall area and Nokesville before it enters Fauquier County. In some places Dominion might have to expand the right of way and in others the company could piggyback new lines on towers. The average height of the existing towers is 125 feet. Most of the coalition's members live in the Gainesville District and are served by the Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative, which offers its customers the option to join its Load Management Program. NOVEC buys its power from Dominion. To join the program, NOVEC customers let the cooperative install switches on their heating and air conditioning systems and water heaters.

The cooperative can then turn off the appliances during summer and winter peak hours to save electricity. About 17,860 of NOVEC's 40,000 or so customers in Prince William are signed up for the load management program, said cooperative spokesman Mike Curtis. Typically NOVEC turns off water heaters for up to two hours twice a day, and air conditioning and heating systems for seven minutes out of every half-hour. The coalition hopes to double that number over the next year and demonstrate that savings could be used to eliminate the need for the power lines if enough people jumped on board, said Jeff Brown, a coalition member who is an energy economist and former gas-fired power plant developer.

"This is a long-term effort to basically do the right thing, which is to conserve energy," said Brown. Dominion predicts blackouts in the area by 2011 if the power lines are not built. The key to avoiding the blackouts is to reduce peak demand, Brown said. It makes sense to try and save energy rather than build power lines, he said. "If you take away the peak day demand, the need for infrastructure goes away," said Brown, chief executive officer of the Honey do Crew, which offers handyman and remodeling services. If Prince William residents set the example, people in other counties might follow to help with the plan.

Brown said he is in touch with people from Fauquier, Loudoun, Stafford and Arlington counties who are interested in forming groups similar to the coalition, Brown said. "The whole point of this exercise is, 'Let's take the least cost, least impact approach first and let's put together a game plan for the whole commonwealth of Virginia,'" he said. "There's no reason to run all of these lines zig-zagging all over the piedmont if we can fix this problem," Kessinger said. About 20 members of the coalition recently spoke to the Prince William Board of County Supervisors to ask for support in their mission.

They wanted the county government to help set the example by participating in similar programs where it could. Supervisor John T. Stirrup, R-Gainesville, said he hoped the county would take measures beyond what it already does to save energy. The coalition members timed their visit to the board chambers to coincide with a recent presentation that showed that the county has started using energy efficient lighting, installed programmable thermostats and designed its new buildings to include en rgy efficiency with automated heating, air conditioning and lighting systems. Stirrup requested the presentation from the county public works department.

"I think it's certainly good public policy to try and invest in energy saving programs," Stirrup said. Stirrup supports the coalition's plan. "I'm certainly hopeful that it might show that the need is not justified for the power line," he said. Curtis said saving power during peak hours is a "good thing," but it wasn't the "whole answer." "To think that we can somehow use load management to keep from having to have more transfer capability or transmission capacity in the area is a false presumption," he said. "It will help. It's a contribution. It shouldn't be ignored," Curtis said of peak usage savings.

"What they're doing is a good thing. It's just not quite as good as they think." Members of the group also charge that Dominion is misleading the public about the need for future electricity in the commonwealth. "The need for power is really in New York and New Jersey," Brown said. It's the coalition's contention that Dominion simply wants the power lines to bring cheap energy from the the Midwest, through Virginia to the Northeast. "If you happen to own the bridge between low-cost power and high-priced markets, you win," Brown said. "That's what Dominion is trying to do." John Smatlak, Dominion's vice president for electrical transmission, disputed the claim, saying the Mount Storm power plant in West Virginia was built to produce electricity to Northern Virginia.

During the last two summers, existing lines couldn't handle the amount of electricity Northern Virginia demanded, Smatlak said. "The transmission lines were over loaded to the point where we couldn't even get the power from our own power station in West Virginia to Northern Virginia," Smatlak said. "We're not building this line because we're trying to access cheap power from the west. We're building this line because we have transmission line overloads." Additionally, federal law requires that power companies add lines so that they don't have power overloads, Smatlak said. Dominion spokesman Jim Norvelle said the power company serves 2.2 million Virginia customers and adds an additional 50,000 customers a year.

The Prince William Board of County Supervisors recently passed a resolution opposing the power lines. The Greater Prince William Chamber of Commerce supports the power lines.