What happens on a peak day?

To see what happens when temperatures rise, we can look at June 12th, 2017—a perfect example of why it is so important that we Shave the Peak:

Temperature

As you can see from the red line, June 12th was a really hot day! Temperature peaked at around 95° F and remained above 90° F throughout the afternoon.

Electricity Demand

As increasing numbers of people began to turn on their air conditioning, energy demand started to rise! Notice how the highest point of the blue line occurs a little after 5 PM—generally when people get home from work and start using a lot of electricity.

Fossil Fuel Use

To account for this really high demand, New England utility companies had to start burning a lot more megawatts of fossil fuels (Natural Gas shown in blue, Coal in orange, and Oil in red). An increase in the amount of dirty fossil fuels burned means an increase in the amount of greenhouse gases emitted.

Wholesale Energy Prices

Because utilities have to burn so much extra fuel, the cost of producing each unit of energy sky rockets! Notice how even the relatively small increases in energy production from above create a huge spike in the cost of energy. The spike is so big (reaching $250 per megawatt hour) that the cost of providing energy on that day sets much of the price you pay for energy all year.