Temperatures in North and South Carolina have been so high during recent weeks that customers of Duke Energy, the major electric supplier in the region, set a new record for summertime energy usage last week.
On July 27 between the hours of 4 and 5 p.m., consumers used 20,671 megawatt hours of electricity, beating the previous hourly record of 20,628 megawatts set in 2007. Daytime highs have consistently been in the upper-90s without much of a break in future sight.
“We have sufficient supplies of electricity to meet our customers’ needs, and our technicians are working around the clock to ensure smooth operations at our power plants and along our power lines,” Duke Energy’s vice president of system planning and operations, Nelson Peeler, said in a press release.
Nevertheless, the company likes to remind customers to find ways to reduce unnecessary energy expenditures wherever possible. Much of the electricity usage is no doubt going toward running air conditioners, which already use around five percent of all of the electricity used in the United States. Duke recommends running AC in the morning and then turning it off during peak afternoon hours, or raising the thermostat by a few degrees while no one is home.
Meteorologist Sean Sublette of the nonprofit Climate Central said these energy use trends are only likely to continue, both in the short and long-term.
“You have a warming atmosphere, higher population, more demand for air conditioning and we’d absolutely expect these numbers to go up and very likely continue to go up further in the coming decades,” Sublette told WUNC, adding that Raleigh summers might feel more like those in South Texas by the end of the century.
Duke Energy spokesperson Megan Miles told the station that energy conservation is good for the company, the environment, and consumers alike. “We always like to remind [our customers] to use energy more wisely inside their home at all times,” she said, “because that helps save them money on their bills.”