Duke Energy thanks customers for conserving during cold snap
Temperatures cracked the freezing mark for the first time in nearly 40 hours late Wednesday morning, a sign of the slow but steady thaw happening across central and eastern North Carolina as arctic air retreats to the north and west.
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With warmer temperatures on tap for the rest of the week, energy and emergency services providers were also seeing a steady decrease in calls or problems associated with cold weather.
Duke Energy thanked customers on Wednesday morning for conserving energy during the last 48 hours, but the utility also said the state set records for energy use on Tuesday, the coldest day in the area in more than 10 years.
Duke Energy Carolinas saw a new winter usage record fall during the 8 a.m. hour Tuesday, when temperatures were hovering near 10 degrees across much of the Triangle. The 20,246 megawatt-hours used exceeded the previous record, set on Dec. 15, 2010, by nearly 2,000 megawatt-hours.
Duke Energy Progress also saw a winter usage peak during the 8 a.m. hour, breaking mark set on Jan. 11, 2010.
"Despite the challenges of the extremely cold weather, our system has responded well," Nelson Peeler, vice president of Duke's system operations, said in a statement. "We have broken usage marks that have stood for as long as five years."
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