TAMPA, Fla. — The heat is putting a strain on our local power grid, but so far – nothing it can’t handle.
TECO Energy says its customers set an all-time record again on Wednesday for the most amount of electricity used at any given moment.
“On Tuesday, they broke a two-year-old record. And 24 hours later, they used even more,” TECO Spokesperson Cheri Jacobs said.
The utility company saw more megawatts of electricity demand this week than they've ever had before.
“With all the air conditioners, humming and keeping folks cool, it was the equivalent of about 500 Taylor Swift concerts occurring simultaneously,” she said, putting it in perspective.
For certain, the hot weather is a big part of it, with people using their AC longer as temperatures persistently stay in the 90s for several hours a day.
“It’s been extremely hot. Sweltering,” said Rhonda Harrison, trying to find shade. “Even at night when the sun is no longer out.”
There are also more people putting more demand on the system.
More than a thousand people a day are moving to Florida and nine out of 10 here use electricity to power their AC systems. That accounts for 54% of all residential power in Florida, the highest rate of any state.
It raises the question of whether all this stress on the grid is creating any capacity issues as they’ve seen in other parts of the country. Some areas have seen brownouts and rolling outages.
“The extreme heat does put some pressure on our equipment and on the system as a whole,” Jacobs said. “But rest assured, we have enough electricity to handle the load.”
And that should be the case for the region’s other power companies, too, since they all share the same delivery system.
“The grid, if you will, is all interconnected,” Jacobs said. “So, Duke and FPL, and Tampa Electric and all the utilities in the state are interconnected. And we produce enough electricity to serve our customers plus a little extra cushion.”
Duke Energy, Tampa Bay's other major power provider, says it's too early to know if their system also set a record. But as far as capacity is concerned, they’re not anticipating any challenges to their system either.