This past weekend, a surge in electricity demand across the Mid-Atlantic region prompted a change at an area wastewater plant.
The electrical grid that serves the east coast, PJM Interconnection, was overloaded with demand when temperatures plummeted to the single digits at 4:20 a.m. Christmas Eve.
PJM asked large electricity users to curb their electricity use to save energy so there would be enough to power homes and smaller businesses.
The Norman Cole Pollution Control Plant in Lorton switched on five electrical generators, removing the plant from the electrical grid. The plant is key to Fairfax County’s wastewater treatment practices and treats 40 million gallons of wastewater a day.
The switch to backup generators returned an estimated 5,700 kilowatts back to the electrical grid for 14 hours, enough to power 4,500 homes, a county press release states.
Normally, electricity from the grid costs about 5 cents per kilowatt hour. The press release states that during this past weekend’s cold snap, prices rose to as much as $4.40 per kilowatt hour.
Christmas was one of the coldest in the past 40 years in our region, with low temperatures dipping below 10 degrees and wind chill factors making the air feel as it if were below zero. High temperatures were in the low to mid-20s.
Since the weekend, high temperatures have increased to the mid-40s.
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