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UTILITIES
Arizona energy grid keeps cool during historic summer heat wave
Planning and response kept power flowing to customer demand
(Metro Creative Connection)
Posted
Special to Independent Newsmedia
During the hottest July in Arizona history, APS customers set an all-time record for energy demand.
APS customers made history for most electricity used in a single hour and sustaining high demand for energy through the latter half of summer. Customers previously set a record on July 30, 2020 with 7,660 megawatts of energy used at the same time.
This year, APS customers:
Shattered the 2020 record by reaching a new all-time peak on Thursday, July 15 with 8,162 MW.
Exceeded the 2020 peak of 7,660 MW on 18 different days in July and August 2023.
Used more energy than the 2020 peak record over a streak of nine days straight.
To put this amount of energy into perspective, those megawatts are equivalent to more than 1.4 million customers running their air conditioners around-the-clock to keep homes and businesses comfortable, and hundreds of thousands of swimming pool pumps and chillers keeping pools cool.
“This summer's heat wave served as a reminder that our energy system can stand up to not just one hot summer day, but long stretches of extreme heat,” Jacob Tetlow, APS executive vice president of operations, shared in a press release. “This is all thanks to the proactive and careful planning by our skilled crews, resource planners and operators who work every day to keep the power on for our customers."
Customers participating in APS Cool Rewards helped maintain grid reliability, while earning bill credits for voluntarily reducing their energy use. A community of more than 58,000 customers and about 80,000 smart thermostats act like a virtual power plant to save energy.
This summer, participating customers conserved a record 135 MW of power – the equivalent of what a small power plant produces.
For comparison, customers in the program decreased energy use by about 110 MW last summer.
As more people and businesses call Arizona home, energy use will grow too, and over the next eight years that growth is predicted to be approximately 40%.
APS says its current energy portfolio is 51% clean.
APS serves approximately 1.4 million homes and businesses in 11 of Arizona’s 15 counties.
