London Hydro sees surge in demand as extended heat warning continues

Thousands of Londoners were without power this weekend, with hydro officials blaming the heat. CTV London’s Reta Ismail reports.

The fifth heat wave of the summer continues to grip Ontario, with an extended heat warning from Environment Canada remaining in effect since Saturday.

Over the weekend, intense heat placed additional stress on London Hydro’s electrical infrastructure, leading to a power outage that left thousands of customers without electricity for several hours.

“The additional heat causes air conditioning load and other loads to go higher,” said Jac VanderBaan, vice-president of operations and planning at London Hydro. “That definitely adds more current to the grid, which stretches some of our connections and yesterday, some of our connections failed.”

London Hydro manages more than 10,000 connections across its network. According to VanderBaan, the ongoing heating and cooling cycles placed extra strain on the system, ultimately contributing to equipment malfunction.

“It was exacerbated by a problem all at the same time at the Hydro One station that supplies London and at Talbot, they had an issue at the same time,” he said. “We haven’t heard what the actual cause was, but it ended up tripping additional feeders and prevented us from restoring power. So that was a complication we don’t normally see.”

London Hydro experienced its highest recorded peak electricity demand in a decade earlier this summer, VanderBaan added, a trend that reflects both past conservation success and current rising consumption.

“Part of that was due to all the energy conservation that’s going on, so people have done a great thing,” he said. “But now … there’s only so many light bulbs you can change, people have done that, added insulation, and now we’re seeing the load start to pick up again.”

With high temperatures expected to continue through the week, VanderBaan is encouraging Londoners to take simple steps to reduce electricity usage.

“If you can, maybe block off the vents in the rooms you don’t need so you’re not cooling a room unnecessarily,” he said. “Use things like drapes and blinds as much as possible. Portable fans or ceiling fans use a lot less energy than air conditioners.”

London Hydro has since restored power to all customers affected by the weekend outage.