COLD SNAP!
Lingering deep freeze breaks energy consumption records — and parking meters.
How cold is it? Cold enough that parking pay stations malfunctioned in certain spots downtown.
A couple of hundred of them it turns out.
Stationnement de Montréal, the folks who oversee the meters and the pay stations, were fielding calls Thursday from customers who were unable to “feed the meter” because of glitches related to the fourth day of an intense cold snap.
Repeated punching of the code identifying the parking spot used did not compute on streets such as Mansfield, and spokesman Pierre Lalumière said battery problems were the cause.
“Yeah, it’s more of a problem than normal, and the stations are solar powered. The batteries are freezing,” Lalumière said.
The machines are linked to a system that advises the office when the machines are malfunctioning, he said.
“We get a warning from the pay station and we’re usually pretty quick at changing the batteries, but it has been a cold week.”
So if you had problems with a meter and you get a ticket, what are your chances of wiggling out of it? Not great, Lalumière said. “We introduced a phone app in June you can use to pay the meter.
“And there are pay stations every 75 metres, so really there’s no excuse.”
Meanwhile, Hydro usage records continue to be smashed as Day 4 of a big chill envelops Montreal.
Once again, a new bar has been raised for consumption of electricity, and the utility company is asking consumers to avoid overwhelming the grid by not using large appliances during peak hours.
The previous record for peak usage of 37,717 megawatts was surpassed Wednesday morning, at 38,900 megawatts.
Wednesday night, usage went even higher, hitting the 39,120 mark, Hydro-Québec spokeswoman Ariane Connor said.
At the time of this new milestone, the temperature was minux 23 C in Montreal.
The usage numbers were expected to be even higher Thursday night.
What exactly is a megawatt? Well, it’s a million watts, Connor said. A household uses kilowatts, or a thousand watts.
To put that in terms we can all understand, a 40-watt bulb uses 40 watts in an hour.
Washers, dryers and dishwashers use the most watts, and that’s why Hydro wants us to avoid using those appliances during the peak morning hours (7 to 9 a.m.) and the evening (4 to 8 p.m.)
In a show of solidarity, the utility turned off its iconic “Q” sign at its headquarters on René Lévesque Blvd.