B.C. Hydro reports new record for peak hourly demand during winter storm

B.C.'shydroand power authority says it set a newrecordfor hourly electricitydemand asa winter storm drove bitterly cold air and heavy snow across the province on Monday night.

A statement from B.C. Hydro said energy consumptionreached more than10,800 megawatts between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. PT just breaking the record set last yearfor the hour in which customers typically usethe most electricity.

"With more sub-zero temperatures in the coming days, B.C. Hydro expects demand will remain high and there is the potential to see this latest record fall before the cold snap ends," spokesperson Susie Riederwrote.

One megawatt of power is equivalent to 1,000 kilowatts. The average single-family detached home in B.C. uses1,279 kilowatt-hourseach month, according to B.C. Hydro.

The utility said the usage was driven by people trying to keep their homes warm. The storm brought up to 30 centimetres of snow to parts of Vancouver Island and as much as 25 centimetres to the Lower Mainland, while blasting northern B.C. with dangerous temperatures as low as40 C.

Roughly 7,000 people werewithout power Tuesday.

As of 11 p.m. PT, the utility said it was dealing with four outages on southern Vancouver Island affecting 589 customers. There were also two smaller outages, one in Surrey and one in Sechelt on the Sunshine Coast, affecting 14 customers.

Environment Canada said the cold weather is expected to last through the next few days, both on the South Coast and in northern B.C.

"This cold air mass is expected to be to remain in place until Thursday, when we start to slowly warm up. Definitely by the weekend, we'll start to see temperatures edge towardseasonal values," saidmeteorologist Jonathan Bau.

The previous record was 10,762 megawatts on Dec. 27 last year. Temperatures that day were also extremely low.

Earlier this month, B.C. Hydro released a report that found the average number of customers affected by a winter holiday storm has risensubstantially in the last year compared to the previous five.

Data showedstorms affected more than 45,000 people between 2012 and 2016, but that number shot up to more than 300,000 between 2017 and 2022.