Yukon breaks record for power consumption

Yukoners broke the territory's all-time record for power consumption on Wednesday.

Yukon Energy says on Dec. 18 at 5:47 p.m.it was generating 83.43 megawatts of electricity, slightly higher than the previous record set almost a year ago.

The corporation says it had to use diesel-generated power to meet the demand.

"We were burning diesel throughout the day," said spokesperson Janet Patterson. "We generated about 86 megawatt hours of electricity using diesel during that 24 hour period and for that one day alone it costmore than $30,000to use our back up diesel."

Patterson says the energy corporation is urging Yukoners to conserve power whenever possible, especially on cold days.