The coldest days experienced in the Energy City in the past several years struck last week with a Wednesday evening cold snap sending SaskPower into a record-setting power consumption mode.
The cold snap that began in earnest on Tuesday eased off by Friday, but not before hitting near - 50 C.
And while SaskPower's production and consumption reached a new level, the same wasn't true for SaskEnergy and their spokeswoman said some of that could be attributed to more recent focus on energy efficiencies in homes and businesses, but the demands were also huge in that "warm-up" sector as well.
Tyler Hopson, communications officer for SaskPower, said the company hit a new peak production/consumption demand around 6:30 p.m. Wednesday with 3,379 megawatts of power. Last year's highest demand was 3,265 megawatts.
The increase in demand was still well within the company's ability to produce electrical power since the current production for SaskPower is just over 4,100 megawatts.
At SaskEnergy, spokeswoman Vanessa Beaupre, said the demand for their natural gas product peaked at 1.1 petajoules. One petajoule equals one million gigajoules. This was below an all-time high demand, but 20 per cent higher compared with the biggest demand day last winter.
"No records set, but we had a peak week and a big 24-hour stretch," Beaupre said.
The gas load for residential consumption did hit a new high though, and that's partially due to the weather and partially due to the growth factor in the province. Between businesses and residences, SaskEnergy has signed on and hooked up over 7,000 new customers in the past year.
And those people are building using more energy efficient models, heating units and appliances.
"The average residential customer used 130 gigajoules a year five or more years ago. Now it's around 107 thanks to energy efficiencies," Beaupre said.
Hopson said SaskPower was dealing with a number of reported power outages during January as well as the production pressures.
"We had a few in the rural southeast on Tuesday. Some got back up quickly, some were off for a longer period. A lot of that was due to the fact that crews were slowed down by weather conditions," he said.
He said more specifically recent power outages in communities such as Torquay (about a month ago) were partially due to oilfield power demands, but that system has now been reinforced and the line re-energized and plans are being made to rebuild a substation in the district to ensure a stable supply of electricity in the region.
"One thing we do is encourage customers to let us know, especially if they think it's an individual home and/or rural properties, because then that gives the crew an idea of where to find the fault. Overall though, there is a more than adequate supply for the provincial grid. There is some aging with some areas of infrastructure, but that's addressed."
Hopson said the recent demand on SaskPower was for the same reason as the demand was high for SaskEnergy.
"Obviously the cold weather, and when you tie that in with increased economic activity and tie-ins with added population, the demand grows."
Hopson said the Crown company will welcome a new major power source later this year with the opening of a gas-fuelled power plant near North Battleford and the Queen Elizabeth Power Station in Saskatoon is adding some power production capacity. A new co-generation project near Spy Hill is already adding 86 megawatts into the grid while the Prince Albert pulp mill contributes a further 10 megawatts.
The traditional steady, coal-fired units at Shand, Boundary Dam and Poplar River continue to produce at expected levels to provide base load capabilities and SaskPower has not had to ask any of its major industrial power users to curtail their activities for fear of surpassing the peak capacity level since even the record-setting demand was well below best production level.
