Rochester, N.Y. – The power outage Irondequoit experienced on June 20 had the RG&E grid within 135 megawatts of its all time record, set in July of 2011. RG&E says there is plenty of power to spare but this puts in perspective what the recent heat wave has meant.
RG&E has some suggestions on how to save energy while coping with the heat, including closing curtains, blinds and windows during the day.
Setting your air conditioner thermostat to 78 or higher will also help.
"Another thing is, there's a lot of appliances - personal electronics, they all suck up electricity. Go through your house and you'll be surprised how many things are off but they're really on, little lights will be blinking. Unplug those things, get them off the circuit and that will cut down on the consumption as well," said Dan Hucko, spokesman for RG&E.
A few thousand customers were affected by the outage Wednesday night. Hucko says that because of shifts and changes made to the system, those outages only affected a few thousand customers instead of tens of thousands of customers.
Hucko also says, "Our system is designed to handle those peak days. We're ready for it and plus the system is designed to take the peak and then a certain percentage over the peak, so we always have a cushion but we were close yesterday.”
