Cold weather drives electric usage

As I was writing this column last month, I referenced how warm it was at the time. I had no idea that the weather would make such a drastic swing and we would be dealing with near, if not, record cold temperatures over the Christmas holidays.

Extreme weather, either hot or cold, can really test an electrical distribution system and its employees but I was extremely proud of our system and employees as we endured the extremely cold weather. Our employees and consulting engineers spend a lot of time and effort to try to build a system that can handle extreme weather. We have been doing long range work plans for many years to prepare for the recent circumstances we faced.

And, immediately prior to the arrival of the cold weather, our employees began checking regulators and other special equipment to make sure we were as ready as we could be at such a late hour.

Our AMI system also played a key role in helping us monitor voltage in real time as the extremely cold weather placed a tremendous load on our system. Fortunately, our system held up well from a voltage standpoint. Of course, we dealt with quite a few outages from the strong and gusty winds that ushered in the cold weather. We were also very fortunate that our power supplier, PowerSouth Energy Cooperative, was able to meet the needs of its members without having to implement rolling blackouts as many other power suppliers were forced to do.

Unfortunately, extreme weather conditions like those we experienced over the Christmas holidays can cause an increase in your power usage resulting in a higher bill than expected. If you need help understanding your usage, feel free to call our Billing Department and we can use our Meter Data Management (MDM) system to provide a graphic like the one listed below of your usage during the recent weather event.

We understand an unexpectedly high bill following a holiday can be difficult to pay. That’s why we work with the Community Action Agency and other agencies across our four county service area to help our members receive assistance with their bills. If you need supporting documentation to apply for assistance or if you need to make payment arrangements, please do not hesitate to contact our Billing Department.

The graphic below is of my personal account during the recent weather event. The blue line represents the temperature and the red bars represent usage. As you can see, as the temperature went down, my usage went up. Feel free to contact our Billing Department if you would like to see the same information for your account.

Steve Sheffield General Manager

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