Saskatchewan sets natural gas use record during week-long cold spell
By Medicine Hat News on January 28, 2020.
Saskatchewan set new records for the use of natural gas in the province in mid-January as a week-long cold snap settled on the province, the Crown utility company reports. Temperatures that dipped to minus-50C accounting for windchill and a new major gas-fuelled power plant in the province’s southwest are considered the reasons why. The recently opened Chinook power station near Swift Current and other generating stations, plus home, farm and businesses customers combined to use 1.56 million gigajoules of natural gas over a 24-hour period ending on Jan. 16. That came after new records were also set in the previous two days. An average home uses 100 gigajoules in one year for heating purposes. A cold front settled across the prairie provinces for much of that week, leading to warnings from Alberta power system operators of the possibility of rolling brown-outs, though none occurred. 6-5
