Comverge (NSDQ: COMV) on Thursday reported second-quarter revenues of $13.3 million, up 39 percent from the same quarter last year – a sign that providing "negawatts" for utilities facing peak power is still a service that's growing in demand.

The East Hanover, N.J.-based demand response provider reported a loss of $9.1 million in the second quarter, slightly better than its $9.6 million loss in the same quarter of 2008.

It also grew the amount of contracts for its "virtual peaking capacity" residential contracts, which are recognized in the fourth quarter, to $20.2 million as of June 30, up from $4.3 million at the end of 2008.

Those VPC contracts largely represent the residential load management services that differentiate it from demand response competitors such as EnerNoc (NSDQ: ENOC), CPower, EnergyConnect and Constellation NewEnergy, which serve commercial and industrial clients (see Comverge Reports $9.1M First-Quarter Loss).

Comverge also serves businesses and factories, but has been pushing into new ways to bring demand response services to homes, such as through smart meters made by Itron, Landis+Gyr, Elster and others via its Apollo software platform (see The Elusive Demand Response-Smart Meter Combo).

Two of its contracts – one with Maryland-based utility Pepco and another recently announced with Dominion Virginia Power – call for it to eventually manage residential demand response through smart meters the two utilities are deploying, although it will begin by serving those homes with its existing pager-based networks (see Comverge's Home Demand Response: Pagers First, Then Smart Meters).

Comverge also reported Thursday that it had 2,794 megawatts under management, which puts it behind EnerNoc, which said it had 3,150 megawatts under management as of June 30.

EnerNoc last month reported a second quarter loss of $10.4 million on revenues of $42.4 million, an improvement from the same quarter in 2008 (see Green Light post).

Both companies outperformed Wall Street expectations in their most recent quarterly earnings, and both have said they're on track to exceed their 2009 goals.

Privately held CPower recently landed an undisclosed investment from Intel Capital, on top of $10.2 million raised in April, indicating an optimistic outlook for the demand response industry (see Green Light posts here and here).

Interact with smart grid industry visionaries from North American utilities, innovative hardware and software vendors and leading industry consortiums at The Networked Grid on November 4 in San Francisco.