As heat indexes topped 100 across the western Philadelphia suburbs in advance of , the region's main electrical utility wasn't even breaking a sweat.
"We're not approaching peak volume at all," said Cathy Engel Menendez, Communications Manager at PECO. "It's a typical day for us."
During a heat wave last July, PECO experienced its highest-ever power demand and to have their power interrupted during periods of high demand.
Engel Menendez said the utility was "monitoring the situation" and had extra field forces on standby in the event of outages.
"Other than that, it's all quiet," Engel Menendez said.
Temperatures are expected to soar into the mid-to-upper 90s again Thursday before cooling this weekend.
Actually, and I'm not positive about this, but if my memory holds correct from a PECO presentation last year, they only make money on distribution. That's why they are so friendly about people switching to alternative power generators (following the recent deregulation), because they don't care if you take your business there. They just get money from owning the lines. Another interesting fact is that providers can also lose some amount of money on peak days. From a previous article about providers paying(!) large customers to curb energy use on peak days: "“Basically the grid operator has two choices. They can either go out and get more generators to increase peak capacity, or they can pay people to reduce their loads on peak days,” Paist said. “It’s cheaper for them to pay people to reduce their loads on peak days than it is to have power plants built... and have capacity sit idle.”