According to Southwest Power Pool, its territory set a new record for electricity usage on Tuesday.

Electricity use peaked around 4:47 p.m. on August 21st at 4:27 p.m., when energy demand peaked at 56,184 MW.

SPP remains under a previously declared Resource Advisory to remain in effect through 8:00 p.m. on Friday, August 25th, and has extended a previously declared Weather Advisory to remain in effect until 8:00 p.m. on Friday, August 25th.

• None of these advisories require the public to conserve energy. Individuals should contact their local utility for details specific to their area.
• These advisories have been issued to raise awareness of potential threats to reliability among entities responsible for operating transmission and generation facilities.
• Conservative Operations is being declared due to high load forecast, loss of generation, wind forecast uncertainty and severe heat.
• To mitigate risks to reliability associated with these factors, SPP may use greater unit commitment notification timeframes, including making commitments prior to standard day-ahead market procedures and/or committing resources in reliability status.
• SPP will send additional information if necessary.

SPP is advising people to contact their local utility for details specific to their area.

Evergy works with SPP to coordinate generation resources for Wichita and portions of south-central and northeastern Kansas. On Monday, Evergy officials said it has the generation capacity available to meet customers’ needs.

Chuck Caisley, Evergy Senior VP and Chief Customer Officer said, “Our system is reliable. Evergy performs seasonal maintenance work on its power plants and transmission and distribution systems during mild weather to help prepare them to meet customer needs during the hot summer months. While we have seen some outages over the past few days, it’s been within normal expectations for extremely hot weather. Crews are responding quickly to restore power when outages occur.”