An “on-demand” approach for a routing protocol for a wireless network that achieves balanced energy consumption among all participating nodes in the network. Synchronization messages transmitted by nodes associated with an upstream node include local node information (LNI) that a node can use to repair or bypass a lost upstream node in a real or virtual (temporary) manner depending upon the local node's battery level. Only if a repair process fails will a global re-organization (Re-Org) be initiated. The LNI also allows for nodes having lower power availability (battery level) not to transmit the LNI so that unaffiliated node(s) can select an upstream node having more power availability thereby extending network life.