Power Companies Prepare To Keep Up With Energy Usage During Heat Wave

Power companies are making plans to keep up with high demand as people crank their air conditioning all the way up to beat the heat.

OG&E and East Central Electric Co-op said they have plans to keep up with the surge.

The hottest months of the year also consume some of the most energy with more fans and more power-hungry AC units running at full blast than any other time in the year.

To keep up, Trisha Koelsch with OG&E said the Southwest Power Pool, which controls the regional grid, issued a conservative operations declaration today.

“It notifies all 14 of their member utilities that we should take all necessary generating resources available to meet the high demand anticipated across the region," she said. “But these types of alerts are actually pretty common during these summer months.”

Katherine Russell with the East Central Electric Co-op said her company is also staying one step ahead of demand with constant communication and predictions from power generation plants.

“They give us updates to let us know you know this is where we’re at, this is where demand is at, this is what we’re foreseeing in the next upcoming weeks," she said.

It's a complicated process, but both companies are confident they'll stay ahead of demand, with no planned blackouts this summer.

"The SPP expects that our region will have sufficient generation to meet the demand of electricity all summer long," Koelsch said.

Both companies have a tiered approach when the demand does get too high, starting with asking for voluntary conservation which neither are considering yet.