A manager of Reliance Heating, demonstrates how a furnace can overheat. (Logan Stein/980 CJME)

By Derek Craddock

ENERGY RECORDS?

No energy records broken during extreme cold snap in P.A.

Dec 7, 2022 | 6:00 PM

The huge drop in temperatures and extreme cold warnings meant furnaces worked overtime the last couple of days but did it break energy consumption records?

According to SaskEnergy and SaskPower, a lot of power and heat were used but not enough to break any records.

According to SaskEnergy, the Prince Albert area used about 25 TJ (terajoules) of energy from 9 a.m. Tuesday to 9 a.m. Wednesday. The provincial total was 1,600 TJ. The record, according to the Crown Corporation, is 1,650 TJ.

Meanwhile, Scott McGregor with SaskPower confirmed the province did use a lot of electricity but not enough to break a record it set last year.

“Last year we did break the overall record right around Christmas/New Year’s break where we did set a new load demand record of 3,910 megawatts,” he said.

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McGregor added if we come across another long cold spell, that number might be broken again.

“It’s too soon to tell, there’s a lot of winter left,” he said. “If we do see some multiple days of province-wide, sustained, extremely cold temperatures, we could see some records broken.”

Almost all regions of Saskatchewan were under Extreme Cold warnings earlier this week as temperatures with windchill hit –40 or colder in the overnight hours.

For Prince Albert, the forecast is expected to bring high temperatures between -10 and -14 from now until early next week with lows dropping between -14 and -20.

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derek.craddock@pattisonmedia.com

Twitter: @PA_Craddock