Extreme cold weather last week brought a new all-time winter peak load for AEP Southwestern Electric Power Company (SWEPCO®) on Wednesday, February 2, as its customers used 4,621,000 kilowatts of electricity at 8:00 a.m., when the average temperature across SWEPCO’s three-state service area was 21 degrees.
The previous SWEPCO record winter peak load had been 4,539,000 kilowatts on January 8, 2010, when the average temperature was 20 degrees. A kilowatt is the electricity required to burn ten 100-watt light bulbs.
The new record demand is 8.2 percent over the company’s projected customer load for this winter. SWEPCO serves over 504,000 customers in western Arkansas, northwest and central Louisiana, and north and east Texas within a 33,000 square-mile service area.