[ RadSafe ] So far, so good -- Power Grid Reports Largest-Ever Peak Load . . .

[John Jacobus]

Power Grid Reports Largest-Ever Peak Load
Adequate Generation Was Available, PJM Reported

POSTED: 2:07 pm EDT August 1, 2005

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A big power grid in the
sweltering eastern U.S. announced it set another world
record Tuesday afternoon by supplying a peak
electrical load of about 135,000 megawatts.

PJM Interconnection LLC coordinates the movement of
electricity among 13 states and serves about 51
million people, many of whom had their air
conditioners on constant high.

"We had adequate generation available, and we didn't
have to do anything particularly special, other than
working very hard," PJM spokesman Ray Dotter said.

Tuesday's peak beat an earlier high of some 130,500
megawatts set last week. Before this year's scorching
summer, the high for the same geographical region was
about 130,300 megawatts in 2002, according to PJM.

The next largest regional transmission organizations
serve France and the Tokyo region in Japan, but both
have peak loads of fewer than 100,000 megawatts,
Dotter said by telephone from PJM's Valley Forge, Pa.,
headquarters.

PJM operates in all or parts of Delaware, Illinois,
Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey,
North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee,
Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia.

Also Tuesday, the utility that supplies power to New
York City and its northern suburbs also had to pump
out a record amount of electricity. The 12,551
megawatts consumed in the city and Westchester County
broke a record set a week earlier, Consolidated Edison
said. 

Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. 


+++++++++++++++++++
"Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea and never shrinks back to its original proportion." -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail:  crispy_bird at yahoo.com

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com