Saskatchewan has exceeded its record for daily natural gas consumption for the second time in less than a week.
SaskEnergy reported a new record of 1.59 petajoules (PJ) was set on Friday as temperatures outside dipped to -31.3 C in Saskatoon and -33.8 C in Regina.
The previous record was set on Feb. 9 when 1.57 PJ of natural gas was used in Saskatchewan. The low in Saskatoon on Feb. 9 was -29.7 C.
Environment Canada issued an extreme cold warning for southern Saskatchewan on Feb. 5. On Saturday, the warning was still in place and is expected to continue for a couple more days.
Extreme cold values of -40 to -50 will be back on Saturday night into Sunday morning.
SaskEnergy said that this is the eighth winter in a row that the usage record has been matched or exceeded. They added that more natural gas is being used because of residential, business, and industrial customer growth, including increasing natural gas use for power production in Saskatchewan.
Daily gas consumption numbers are tracked over 24 hours from 9 a.m. to 9 a.m.
A petajoule is a unit of measurement which is equal to one million gigajoules (GJ) of natural gas. According to SaskEnergy, the average home in the province uses about 100 GJ of natural gas annually.
The energy provider’s pipeline system is designed to handle this rise in growth and ensures additional capacity so even on peak record days the system is able to provide more natural gas than needed.
SaskEnergy employees inspect, maintain and upgrade Saskatchewan’s natural gas delivery system throughout the year. This ensures that it operates safely and efficiently no matter what the weather conditions are.
The system is also monitored 24 hours a day to keep up with peak demand situations such as the extremely cold weather the province has been experiencing.
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