Heat wave leads to power spike across province

By Collin Gallant on July 29, 2017.

Medicine Hat News

City power customers approached record usage on Thursday as record heat in Medicine Hat and across most of Alberta sent residents to thermostats to crank up the A/C.

Power use across the province spiked to a new record on Thursday as demand rose to 10,852 megawatts — the third time this month that a new record was established.

It came as a heat advisory remains in place for much of southern and eastern Alberta, and long-term forecasts calling for even hotter weather this weekend and next week.

Locally, record temperature on Wednesday (33.5 C) and Thursday (36.1 C) sent local peak demand to 161 MW and 171.4 MW, respectively — close to the record.

The highest demand ever recorded by the city utility is about 175 megawatts — or about 90 per cent of the city’s generating capacity.

“We are currently averaging around 170 MW of city load during peak times during the weekdays,” said Brian Strandlund, the general manager of the city’s generating unit.

“We have around 193 MW of capacity so have extra capacity available. We see no issues with supply due to the continued hot weather for the city.”

Environment Canada predicts local temperatures to reach at least 33 C each day until at least Thursday, with a high of 36 C expected that day.

This week’s activity at the Stampede grounds likely accounted for some increased demand, said Strandlund, but wouldn’t have been a notable difference.

Across the Alberta grid, meeting the provincial demand was exacerbated by relatively calm conditions leading to little wind energy coming online, as well as coal plants going off the system for a time. While the demand was met, it temporarily sent prices skyrocketing to $999 per megawatt hour under the current open energy market system.

That translates to a price of about $1 per kilowatt hour for distributors in need of energy. The residential price for power in Medicine Hat for the month of July is about 3.9-cents per kilowatt hour.

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