El Paso Electric breaks record

consecutive days of triple digits. and that heat has caused residents to increase their electricity usage. almost two weeks ago, el paso electric says we broke last year’s peak usage rate …. abc-7’s evan folan is live to explain. … on july 14th – we hit a summer high of 108 – which meant a/c units, swamp coolers and fans were on high blast to keep you cool – which meant more electricity was being used.. take a look at this graph. the blue line shows the average daily usage of electricty for residents. peak hours of usage vary from 4 to 6 pm – during the week and weekends. the green line – you are looking at is the usage during july 14th – when we hit 108. the line peaks around 5 pm – breaking last years record – by enough electricity to power more than 40 thousand homes. but was that enough for the electric company to enact managed outages? not quite… there are several steps taken before managed outages. first the electric company would have to exceed its generating power. then it would reach out to large scale customers – which arent residential – and ask them to decrease usage. if power was still need – the company would then outsource – and buy electricity from another power plant. and in an extreme case – if some of those options were not available – or a transmission line was down – then the electical company would start managed outages. “its been a really hot summer w planned ahead and asked the city emergency management prepare incase of managed outages but we did not have any and i think that was the big story here – we were ready in case. ready because this isn’t anything new. for the past ten years – the city has mostly seen an increase in electrical usage. looking back to 2006 – the peak usage for that year is far below what we are at now… el paso electric has added 55-thousand customers since 2006, but with everyone using more, it’s as if 200- thousands homes were added to the grid. el paso electric says you can reduce energy usage by keeping your thermostat at 78 degrees while your home and 80 degrees when you leave. with plenty more hot days ahead this summer, telling you to turn down