Quebec has been smashing several electricity consumption records for nearly two weeks.
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Saturday morning at 7:15 a.m., Hydro-Québec recorded simultaneous consumption of 39,415 megawatts, a record for a weekend day, explained Hydro-Québec spokesman Jonathan Côté.
On January 11, the province broke the 2014 all-time record by reporting electricity consumption of 39,994 megawatts. Friday morning, it was again smashed while the province recorded a simultaneous consumption of 40,380 megawatts.
exceptionally cold
The reason for all these records is simple. “When a cold wave persists for several days, as is currently the case, the thermal envelope of buildings is less efficient,” explained Mr. Côté. Thus, Quebecers have to increase the heating in order to stay warm, which leads to an increase in consumption.
“The last time we had such a cold winter was in 2004,” said Jean-Philippe Bégin, meteorologist at Environment Canada, on Friday. While Quebec has been suffering from a freezing cold spell since Thursday night, it is not surprising to see demand for electricity consumption reaching peaks.
Data scrambled by the pandemic
In addition, the data is also influenced by the daily habits of Quebecers. “The pandemic has come to confuse the cards”, mentioned Jonathan Côté, adding that the habits of Quebecers have changed due to teleworking. “There are now more people working on Saturday mornings,” he said.
It is an atypical period due to the pandemic and the freezing temperatures, concluded the spokesperson for Hydro-Québec.