Chilly temps prompt system peaks for two consecutive days

ANDALUSIA, ALA. – Baby, it’s cold outside. Frigid temperatures across Alabama and northwest Florida prompted all-time system peaks for two days in a row. At 7 a.m. yesterday, PowerSouth reached a 2,165 megawatt peak. This morning at 7 a.m., PowerSouth’s system reached a 2,206 megawatt peak (unadjusted), exceeding yesterday’s peak by 40 megawatts and the previous record by 105 megawatts.

The new peaks even surpassed PowerSouth’s projected winter demand of 2,098 megawatts.

And the cold snap isn’t over. With the current forecast of even colder temperatures over the next several days, this record will be short-lived.

“We expect to exceed this current peak over the weekend if temperatures are as cold as projected,” said Tim Hattaway, Manager of PowerSouth’s Energy Control Center.

Ensuring adequate energy for system peaks is of utmost importance, and the Energy Resources and Energy Control staffs make long- and short-term capacity decisions to cover load projections.

“We knew that additional capacity was needed because a plant outage, so we made preparations in December for enough capacity to cover the projected demand,” Hattaway said.

Because the actual demand exceeded the projected demand, PowerSouth made additional short-term capacity purchases to cover the additional load, according to Ron Graham, PowerSouth Energy Resources Manager.