HOLYOKE, Mass. – Gordon van Welie, the man responsible for making sure the lights stay on in New England, is usually anxious this time of year.

Even though it looks like millions of residents in the region won’t have to worry about being able to fire up their air conditioners to battle the upcoming summer heat, he knows the demand for electricity is only going to grow.

“We believe we have enough capacity available to meet the projected demand for electricity this summer,” he said. “Assuming everything is running and nothing big breaks.”

As president of ISO New England, which manages the region’s power grid from a control room that’s slightly larger than a tennis court, part of van Welie’s job is to make sure there’s enough power to feed the needs of about 14 million residents in six states.

During a nearly two-hour meeting with reporters at ISO New England’s headquarters Tuesday, he also pushed a message of conservation.

As electronic devices continue to become cheaper and more easily available, people need to make smart choices about using them, he said.

“You’ve added in your homes large plasma screen TVs, digital video recorders, cable modems, iPods, cell phone chargers,” he said. “They’re all sitting there consuming more energy and producing more heat. Now you have an air conditioner that has to try and reduce the inside of your home to be 10 degrees below what it is outside, and it’s going to have to work that much harder to get rid of that heat.”

Since 1980, there’s been a 1.7 percent growth in demand for electricity during peak demand, which falls on the hottest days of the year. And overall, there’s been a 1.2 percent increase in energy use each year.

But there are blips in that trend. Last year, which had a mild winter and high energy prices, New England used slightly less electricity than it did in 2005.

“High prices caused people to think seriously about conservation and energy efficiency,” van Welie said. And as people used less energy, wholesale electric prices dropped by about 5 percent.

Still, ISO New England’s projections show electricity demand rising. By 2015, the grid managers expect 32,000 megawatts will be needed to meet peak demand, up from the 29,000 megawatts expected from this summer’s hottest day.

“The most viable option to deal with this is to become more efficient about our own usage,” van Welie said. “We can do something to address this peak demand growth.”