The extreme Arctic cold weather last week brought a new all-time winter peak load for AEP Southwestern Electric Power Company (SWEPCO) on Friday, January 8, as its customers used 4,543,000 kilowatts of electricity at 8:00 a.m., when the average temperature across SWEPCO’s three-state service area was 19 degrees. This broke the winter record of 4,180,000 kilowatts on January 5 of this year. The previous record winter peak load had been 4,186,000 kilowatts on February 16, 2007, when the average temperature was 28 degrees. A kilowatt is the electricity required to burn 10 100-watt light bulbs.
            The new record demand is 13.6 percent over the company’s projected customer load for the winter.  SWEPCO serves over 474,000 customers in western Arkansas, northwest Louisiana and north and east Texas within a 25,000 square-mile service area.