The most recent heat wave in BC could have a negative impact on your next hydro bill.
On Monday, BC Hydro recorded the highest hourly peak demand of the summer at 7,297 megawatts.
That’s a jump of 444 megawatts when compared to July 24.
While that number seems high, it doesn’t come close to their peak numbers in the winter.
“We are using about 30% more electricity in the winter, so our winter peaks are just over 10,000 megawatts whereas our summer peaks are just over 7000 megawatts,” says Bob Gammer, spokesperson.
BC Hydro anticipates that peak hourly demand will spike between 7,500 to 7,800 megawatts over the next few days.
Gammer says people have no shortage of options on how to stay cool.
“If you can have the windows open once the outside temperature is cooler than your inside temperature and then have a fan blowing – but don’t have a fan on if you’re not in that room as a fan blowing air around in an empty room doesn’t do anybody any good and just uses more electricity and adds that to your bill. When you’re in a room and if you got the fan on, that air moving across your skin and is going to make you feel cool. Other things you can do is close the drapes and blinds and shade your windows because that can block out up to 65% of the heat.”
The rash of wildfires that are currently wreaking havoc is in no way responsible for the surge in electricity use.
“When we have outages we are actually using less electricity so when the communities are cut off because power lines are burned up by the fire that’s reducing the load,” says Gammer. “I would say that generally speaking this fire season has not changed consumption it’s really the heat from these heat waves that were getting like this week is what’s making the difference.”
The highest hourly peak demand ever recorded in the province was on January 3 when consumption reached 10,124 megawatts between 5 and 6 pm.
This is in contrast to places like Ontario and California, where the highest peaks are experienced in the summer.