BC Hydro says new record set for hourly peak consumption in July

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VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – It’s a lot cooler now, but that wasn’t the case over the last few weeks. The province hit an all-time summer high when it comes to energy consumption.

Simi Heer with BC Hydro says the province-wide heat waves experienced last month put stress on our system with increases in consumption and one day was particularly bad.

“We actually set a new record for hourly peak demand, we observed out highest peak ever on July 9th, and that was 7,436 megawatts, and that happened between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m.”

She says long periods of high temperatures normally result in more electricity usage.

“When we do have a sustained heat wave and we see high temperatures throughout the day province-wide, we see a direct impact on our provincial electricity load as well. You’ll see people turning on more fans, their turning to air conditioning units, day over day, refrigeration units will work harder as well.”

She says the second-highest hourly peak for the summer was August 11th, 2014. And she points out these numbers are nowhere near what we see in the winter.

Her advice to save power and reduce your energy bill is to keep blinds down, use a ceiling fan instead of an air conditioner, hang clothes to drive, BBQ instead of cooking indoors, and take shorter cooler showers.

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