P.E.I. hits peak electrical load during cold snap

P.E.I. reached a new record for peak electrical load over the weekend during extremely cold temperatures.

Maritime Electric CEOJason Roberts said the load peaked at 393 megawatts.

"The system held up well. It performed like it was designed to do. I mean, I don't know what the absolute limit is. Certainly don't want to ever test it," he said.

Roberts toldCBC News: Compass host Louise Martinthere were no blackouts or rolling outages.

Maritime Electric on how the utility handles extra demand on the grid

2 years ago

Duration 5:50

CEO Jason Roberts speaks with CBC News: Compass host Louise Martin about what happens in extremely cold temperatures.

"We did have some outages throughout the course of the 24 to 36 hours. Most of that was related to equipment functioning the way it was supposed to protect the system....Certainly don't want to see customers without power, but it avoids damage to the system."

Roberts said the company was communicating with power utilities in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick as well.

"Leading up to it, there's a lot of communication happening internally. There's a lot of communication happening with New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Quebeceven. Was I uncomfortable? I'm always uncomfortable when there's a weather event.I don't want to see customers go without power," Roberts said.

"I did take comfort in the fact that the power outages were short this time and that the equipment that's on the system did operate like it was supposed to."

Maritime Electric turned on its diesel-fuelledturbines to help create power on P.E.I.

"We have a 50-megawattunit in Charlottetown and we have two units out in Borden that give us 40 megawatts. So they were operating....We needed them at times we were supplying energy to the region. So you know we were all happy to have all that supply available," he said.

"Our focus was supplying customers, meeting that peak demand and making sure we met our obligations in the region."

On-Island generation needed

Roberts said there was a limit on the amount of electricity that was coming to P.E.I. through the underground cablesfrom New Brunswick.

"As it got colder in the region, we saw Hydro-Qubec limit the supply coming into New Brunswick. New Brunswick needed to meet their load, Nova Scotia needed to meet their load. So we were able to bring in enough that we needed through the cables as well as run our generation and use the wind supply available."

When it comes to energy created by wind, Roberts said they had about 60 megawatts through the course of Saturday afternoon.

Roberts said the highest number of outages on P.E.I. was 3,000-4,000 at a particular point in time.

He said as more people move away from fossil fuels, Maritime Electric is planning on ways to meet the new load requirements.

"We continue to plan for in the future. It's really going to come down to the availability of generation in the region in the future and we all need to work together to make sure that's there," he said.