re: DEMCO Alert: Reduce Use Now!

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Yeah…the increased usage has nothing to do with trees snapping and hitting lines.

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That was my first thought as well

If everyone had natural gas heat this wouldn't be happening.

Screw heat pumps and their little strip heaters.

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I think they should have upgraded their systems to deal with hurricanes that will come and do much worse than snow, and would get the job done well ahead of time

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We hit a record load this morning. Has everything to do with it being cold and everyone home with their heaters on. You can’t prep a delivery system for that much less a few down lines from ice. Your understanding of the issue is limited to what you think hurricanes do.

An electric heater, which are abundant in Louisiana, use exponentially more wattage than an AC. If you’ve ever used a small fryer at a tailgate, you’d know this. Just one of those heating elements needs 1200 watts or more.

Louisiana’s peak load ALWAYS happens in the winter. What power companies can charge is partially based on that peak load number. So when Demco says “extreme demand,” they really mean record demand.

ETA: the wattage is almost 10:1

An electric home furnace will use anywhere from 20k-50k watts per hour while an AC will only pull 2.5k-5k. Now imagine a hot summer where lots of people are inside, but they may also be at the pool, or on vacation, or at work. Then imagine a freeze like this where school is closed, work from home, and no one can go outside for long periods. At 7AM this morning everyone’s heater turns up, everyone’s lights turn on, etc. There is a HUGE spike! It only lasts a couple days whereas the summer heat can last weeks and weeks. This is why the summer bill is higher.

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As opposed to 100+ degree heat in the summer? How can there possibly be more demand when there are a respectable amount of natural gas heating systems in the mix and air conditioning is all electric?

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While it has already been explained for an easy comparison ask any of your SELA neighbors that have ALL their heat produced by electricity what months their highest bills are. Unless they live in a meat locker 12 months a year it will always be a winter month and not August.

Also consider the temperature delta in the summer and last night and tonight. If you keep your house 68 year round the delta last night was approaching 60 degrees, it is fairly rarely 120+ in SELA.

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NG is actually one of the most efficient heating methods available.

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And my NG is cranked to the hilt and ATMOS is not whining about NG usage. So DEMCO can up their game if they want to be an electric power supplier in this area. What sucks is that the end user does not have a choice in the matter. Funny, I also have property that is serviced by ENTERGY and they aren't crying like bitches.

What is being missed here is that this type of weather hasn't happened since what, 1890? No power company builds their system to handle extremes that happen every 130 years. Just like Texas during their freeze. And yes, when the system is hitting new peaks and outages occur, especially down wire or broken poles, peak demand limits your backfeed capability. Every power company deals with this in extremes. I'm not a DEMCO apologist, but just being realistic. Oh, and all of you natural gas homies, what would happen if there are mass power outages and everyone tried to run NG heat/stoves/water heaters? NG pressure would plummet and none of your stuff would work. Again, extremes aren't design cases.

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But what is everyone had an EV at home to charge like Democrats want?

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We'd be fricked like democrats want. They love to create crisis although they never really solve any.

Entergy, as a generation producer, has it in their best interest to keep the power on during the coldest days of the year. Again, it’s because the next year’s rate is partially based on the peak demand.

Is there a power company that the OT likes or even is just OK with?


Entergy and Demco apparently are worse than cancer.