El Paso Electric customers set new peak demand during heatwave that caused outages

EL PASO, Texas -- El Paso and the Borderland experienced a record-setting heat wave earlier this month, with afternoon highs routinely hitting around 110 degrees.

So it is no surprise, El Paso Electric customers also set a new peak demand for electricity, using 2,173 megawatts from 4 to 5 p.m. on July 13.

That is up nearly 10 percent from last year's record peak, according to the utility company.

A megawatt is a unit for measuring power that is the equivalent of the energy produced by about 10 automobile engines.

When the new peak demand hit, El Paso was under a seven-day heat advisory issued by the National Weather Service. During that period, El Paso Electric customers set new peak demand records nine times.

The day El Paso set the highest peak demand on July 13, thousands of El Paso Electric customers found themselves without power because of outages.

At the time, El Paso Electric spokesman George De La Torre said the hot weather was behind the outages.

“Sustained demand during extreme sustained hot weather doesn’t allow equipment time to cool overnight, causing the equipment to overheat and (become) damaged – (in turn) causing outages,” De La Torre said at the time.

In addition to the hot weather, the electric utility said contributing factors to the new peak usage record were more people staying at home because of the pandemic, an increase in customers and continued conversion to refrigerated air from swamp coolers.

“It is a credit to our dedicated crews that modified operations and schedules to ensure the highly utilized generating facilities and overall grid was able to deliver the needed power to our customers as well as mitigate power outages,” the utility said Tuesday in a statement issued with its announcement of the new peak demand.