Meeting electricity demand during heat waves
When we have a heat wave of three or more days in a row, air conditioners are running non-stop and electricity demand often reaches its peak during these times. These also tend to be the days when smog is an issue as well. To meet electricity demand at these peaks, it becomes more likely that we have to rely more on coal, oil and gas-fired plants. These plants, located in Ontario, release greenhouse gases and other harmful pollutants that add further to Ontario's air pollution and smog.
That's where peaksaver plays a critical role. By cycling down air conditioners, peaksaver allows us to reduce these peaks.
Does my air conditioner make a difference?
You may wonder how reducing the cycling of your air conditioner can make any real impact. Keep in mind, that we now have air conditioners of over 60,000 Toronto customers on peaksaver. Additionally, utilities outside of Toronto have also signed up thousands of peaksaver customers. So it really is important, and it does add up.
Activations are short, sometimes just minutes and never more than four hours, but they are very effective. From our monitoring, we can see an immediate positive difference when we activate peaksaver.
This is why we promote the peaksaver program and urge you and your business to participate. It's an easy way for you to help the environment, and we all appreciate it.
As a side benefit, with Time-of-Use rates, peaksaver reduces your energy use in during the highest cost, on-peak periods. So, you also get potential cost savings too.