Province ties natural gas record

REGINA Saskatchewan residents used a record-tying amount of natural gas to stay warm during recent frigid temperatures.

SaskEnergy reported the high consumption during the 24-hour period between 9 a.m. Thursday and 9 a.m. Friday. The 1.50 PetaJoules of natural gas consumption ties the record previously set on Dec. 30, 2017.

A PetaJoule (PJ) is a unit of measurement equivalent to one million Gigajoules (GJ) of natural gas. The average home in Saskatchewan consumes about 100 GJ of natural gas annually.

In a news release, SaskEnergy credited the consumption record to “residential, business and industrial customers — especially the natural gas load from power production, enhanced oil recovery and mining.”

The Crown corporation says record-setting natural gas usage days are happening more frequently due to growth in the number of customers.

SaskEnergy says its pipeline system is designed around the increased growth, “ensuring additional

capacity so that even on peak record days, the system is able to provide more natural gas than required.”

SaskPower didn’t tie or break the previous record of 3,792 megawatts that was set the same day as the SaskEnergy consumption record.

SaskPower spokesman Joel Cherry said electricity use got very close to the record on Feb. 4, but has since dropped.

SaskPower’s total system load reached a peak of 3,723 megawatts.

Cherry said that a new peak load is usually a combination of high residential use and high industrial use.

That means a record-setting day (or a record-tying day) is more likely to happen on a weekday than on the weekend.

“But with the weather staying cold as it is, it really could happen any day,” Cherry said.

Many of the same factors affect both natural gas and electricity usage.