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No local blackouts predicted here

Residents using less energy than years past, likely due to conserving energy, saving money.

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By Dave Greber, Staff Writer 2:24 AM Thursday, July 8, 2010

HAMILTON — As many on the country’s eastern seaboard are taking a hopeful watch-and-wait approach to the strength of power grids from New York to Washington, D.C., amid triple-digit temperatures, the situation locally is much less dire.

And it likely has more to do with a down economy than the scorching sun, city officials said.

Temperatures reached the low 90s on Tuesday, July 6, according to the National Weather Service. The NWS predicted temperatures to increase again today, July 8, before falling at the end of the week as rain moves in.

Despite the actual air temperatures, humidity levels make it feel above 100 as a heat emergency continued for the region.

The nation’s largest city and capital, however, are dealing with temperatures over 100 degrees, and as a result, at least the threat of blackouts due to an overtaxed power grid.

But Hamilton officials said the city’s electric loads — considered to be the peak of the annual June through August peak — are much lower than records set five years ago.

On average, Hamilton residents and businesses consume approximately 120 megawatt hours of electricity per day during the summer months, according to Doug Childs, Hamilton’s manager of utility services. The averages throughout the rest of the year hover around 100 megawatt hours. The peak prediction for Wednesday and today were expected to be below 150 megawatt hours, Childs said, which is well below the highest number the city experienced of 166 megawatt hours in July 2005. Such a jump was seen that year, Childs said, because the city had still in existence large employers like Mercy Hospital and others who have since closed.

“The message is that it’s business as usual for the city of Hamilton,” Childs said of electric operations this week. “There’s plenty of electricity to buy and produce. It’s supply and demand, and there’s plenty of energy supply.”

Childs said throughout the Midwest, electric loads are down, likely because residents are conserving energy to save money, or because businesses are consuming less to deal with the sluggish economy.

Overall regional usage is down between 3 percent and 6 percent, which includes a drop of between 15 percent and 25 percent for commercial customers, Childs said.

Childs said the city has had very few outages as a result of the heat, although officials will continue to monitor the system closely throughout the week.

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2112 or dgreber@coxohio.com.

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