Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
John Daley Reporting
It's another toasty day out today, and as the days get warmer, so too are Utah consumers stretched to keep cool. And your public utility is stretched to deliver power.
Much of that demand is driven by one appliance, your cooler. You could call it "Sunny's Law"--the hotter out it gets, typically, your power use goes up. A lot of that is due to your A/C.
For years, evaporative coolers were a popular choice for keeping your home cool, but over the past couple of decades, more and more people are trading out the evaporative cooler for air conditioner units.
Dave Eskelsen, Utah Power Spokesman: "It used to be probably 15, 20 years ago, maybe 20 percent central air, 80 percent evaporative cooling or nothing. And now those situations are pretty much reversed."
Air conditioning uses a lot more energy. Non-industrial energy use has gone up a solid 1.7 percent a year, but peak load power demand in the heart of the summer is rising at 5 percent annually. That stretches your costs as a consumer and stretches the utility too.
Electric use is up across the board -- residential, commercial, industrial. Much of that is also driven by our increasing numbers of toys, from DVDs and iPods, to cell phones and computers.
Utah Power wants to expand energy production across the board with more coal-fired power plants, as well as more renewables like wind, geo-thermal and solar. Clean energy advocates say it's a good idea.
Sarah Wright, Utah Clean Energy: "Utah Power has to build to meet that demand, so if we only need that power during the summer, during the peak times, that's very expensive power to provide. So it's worth it to invest in these clean energy systems, solar energy systems that provide that peak power."
Dave Eskelsen, Utah Power Spokesman: "We're going to need everything that we can build. We're looking at wind power, we're looking at coal power, we're looking at energy efficiency. We're looking at other kinds of renewable resources. We need everything."
There are plenty of ways to save energy; one is if you're buying an appliance, get the most energy efficient model.
