Much of Alberta remains under an extreme cold warning, which was issued by Environment Canada late last week.

While Albertans desperately try to keep warm during this cold snap, home furnaces, as well as other heating elements and large appliances are working overtime. The extremely high demand for electricity spiked so much on Monday night that it triggered two energy emergency alerts from the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO).

Tara De Weerd with  AESO says that those alerts are issued to electricity providers as a precaution. She says "If one of those major generating units had tripped off the system which can happen when we have these extreme temperatures and some of the equipment can fail. A loss of a large generator would have been an issue for us and likely would have pushed us into that level 3."

Alberta has hit a new peak power consumption record. Homes and businesses across the province were using 11,698 MW of power during peak times between 4 pm and 7 pm. That new record is just one megawatt higher than the previously set record back in January of 2018.

One megawatt-hour (Mwh) is equivalent to the amount of electricity used by approximately 330 homes for one hour.

There is a chance the record could be broken again tonight (Wednesday) as our cold snap continues and temperatures remain between 30 and 40 degrees below the freezing mark.

De Weerd says that changing a few habits will go a long way. She says "The peak hours are between 4 pm and 7 pm, and if you can avoid using your major appliances like your dishwasher, washer and dryer throughout those hours all of that helps."

De Weerd says that a Level 3 alert brings the possibility of rolling blackouts in order to conserve electricity, but adds that  AESO doesn't believe that will happen.

We are expecting a massive jump in temperatures by the end of the weekend and are even forecasted to be above zero by Monday, which should help power consumption habits across the province return to normal.