The capstone of the EEI annual chief executive confab, this year, this week, in Hollywood, Fla., was the concluding session.  Like most concluding session, attendance was unfortunately sparse as scores of attendees headed to the airport to get back home - or to the golf course to sizzle their brain in the tropical sun.

Lucky for you, your intrepid blogger was on hand.

The master of ceremonies this year was John Rowe, the head of Exelon. He was reflective as he led his peers, Lewis Hay of NextEra Energy, Thomas Farrell, of Dominion, Anthony Earley, of DTE Energy and Richard Kelly, of Xcel Energy, through many of the issues of the day.

Rowe reflected on the Gulf disaster and its possible lingering implications to business in general and electric power companies in specific.

This is what he said. "It raises again the question - can we manager our technologies better than the oil industry."

Rowe confided that his company takes its senior management to Three Miles Island to impress upon them the dimensions of true crises when they arise and their decades-spanning implications. I wonder if oil industry executives plan similar excursions in the years ahead to the oil-slickened Gulf.

Turning to another significant theme, Rowe wondered if, in today's world of $5 per thousand cubic feet natural gas prices, any new technologies - nuclear, wind and carbon capture and storage - will have any appeal.

Even so, Hay weighed in, "Smart grid has the opportunty to be a real game-changer in our industry."

A number of execs seemed to agree that smart grid will have to be seamless and run by the utility because customers are not going to want to mess around with complicated new technology to save a few bucks a month.

Dick Kelly said that his tech savvy customers, like the Boulder crowd, want their TV on and their beer cold. Beyond that, energy is not top of mind.

Meanwhile, smart grid is very relevant going forward. That was the thrust of views in a rollicking webcast I conducted yesterday on Shaping Demand in Pursuit of Energy Efficiency.

I polled the audience on how much each year utilities will increase the amount of peak load reductions in the next few years. Half said 1-5 percent. About one-third said 6-10 percent. The balance said more than 10 percent.

Recent history?

Interestingly, government stats show utilities managed to cut peak load by 32,741 megawatts in 2008, up 8.1 percent from 2007.

I asked how much utilities will increase annual spending on demand side management in the next few years.

44 percent said under 10 percent; 34 percent said 11-20 percent; 13 percent said 21-30 percent; 10 percent said more than 30 percent.

History? Spending increased 47 percent in 2008, compared to 2007, and at an average annual rate of 23 percent between 2003 and 2008.

Healthy growth.

Demand side management and efficiency programs are here to stay, although activity may dip somewhat, perhaps a side effect of a lingering nasty recession.