Riverside Public Utilties sets record for local electricity use

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On Tuesday, Riverside Public Utilities delivered the third highest amount of electricity ever in RPU history.

Riversiders consumed 564 megawatts for power. A single megawatt is one million watts. While the numbers might be difficult to understand, on the simplest level, an bulb will use 25 to 100 watts; fluorescent lamps drop that power requirement to as low as 5 watts. The majority of power consumed on hot days is used for air conditioning.

“This tied the 2009 Peak and is the 3rd highest peak in history. Peak Thursday is forecast to be higher (570 - 585 MW),” according to Mike Bacich, with Riverside Public Utilities.

On Tuesday Riverside had a number of small residential transformers fail under the stress of the power demands. “In the afternoon and evenings customers came on and cranked up the air conditioning,” said Bacich.

More Information:

Previous peak demands for power in Riverside:
MW Date
564 - 9/2/09
535 - 8/26/08
609 - 8/31/07
587 - 7/22/06

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