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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Every spring, fewer homeowners are found on their roofs, changing the pads and belts in their swamp coolers.
Instead, residents increasingly have switched to air conditioning, which uses more power and increases demand on the utilities.
Utah Power spokesman Dave Eskelsen said it's not his company's job to tell people how to use their energy, but "the facts are, evaporative cooling uses about a third to a half of the energy" needed by central air conditioning.
Non-industrial use of electricity has risen at a steady 1.7 percent a year, reflecting additional customers and increased use of appliances like home computers. But the peak load of power demand, which shows up when air cooling devices are switched on, has been rising at 5 percent yearly, with the highest peaks in July.
The stepped-up demand required Utah Power to expand its substations, "maybe putting a main transformer in a substation where one sufficed before," he said. Also, the utility has to expand the capacity of power lines "because what was adequate to serve a residential neighborhood 20 years ago is no longer."
Upgrading the power system to meet peak demand is reflected in the electric bill of not only those who use air conditioners but everyone on the grid.
"It's so expensive to meet the little peak," said Craig Hibberd, who helps the Moab Energy Efficiency Challenge. He compares that to an airline finding it has to add many planes "because you have a lot of people flying on Monday."
Hibberd, formerly with the Utah Energy Office and the Western Area Power Administration, has noticed many Moab residents switching from swamp coolers to air conditioners.
"Even the affordable housing down here is using refrigeration air conditioning," he said.
Hibberd is a champion of swamp coolers, which he says are efficient except during periods of high humidity.
For evaporative coolers to perform correctly, a home's windows need to be open.
"People have kind of gotten away from opening windows and turning fans on," he said.
Brent Bangerter of Intermountain Heating and Air, which services both swamp coolers and refrigeration types, said people like the conditioners because they blow cool air through ducts and reduce the temperature in all of the home's rooms evenly,
A swamp cooler "usually sits on your roof somewhere and blows down your hallway," Bangerter said
Phil Powlick, manager of the State Energy Program, said that while air conditioners use more electricity, swamp coolers use water.
Much of the swamp cooler-vs.-conditioner debate has focused on the need to conserve energy, and the swamp cooler is the clear winner in that aspect. But Powlick said, "Water conservation is important, too."
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
