As 2017 drew to a close, Saskatchewan residents did everything they could to stay warm. Faced with temperatures which stayed around the -30° mark, and wind chills as cold as -50° the most common theme was turning up the furnace.

The struggle to stay warm saw new highs being set in terms of natural gas consumption, but in power consumption as well.

“It (the peak) happened at 5:42 p.m., around supper time, on Friday, December 29th,” explained Jordan Jackle, a spokesperson with SaskPower. “The total system load reached 3,792 megawatts, and thats 45 megawatts over the previous demand record, which is equivalent to the electricity required to power about 45,000 Saskatchewan homes.”

The previous record was set in January of 2017. According to Jackle, these new records are becoming a common trend, but the weather itself isn’t the only factor.

“Saskatchewan is growing. We continue to add more and more customers and businesses to the power grid, and individuals are actually using more power than they used to in terms of new devices in people’s homes and new appliances,” Jackle added.