Jun 26, 2009
SOURCE: 570 News
Kitchener - You may have noticed some blips and outages in your hydro lately.
Just yesterday in Kitchener, the power was disrupted along Victoria from King to Lancaster and on Margaret from Victoria towards Queen.
A few weekends ago, there was another outage in the Old Chicopee area of the city.
Wilf Meston, Operations Manager with Kitchener Wilmot Hydro tells 570 News, squirrels and birds on hydro lines cause the power to arc, electrocuting themselves and causing isolated outages.
Meston says its an easy problem to fix but something that's hard to prevent.
He says the summertime is the worst time for these outages.
Animals are more active when its very hot out.
The heat also means it's important for us to conserve as much power as possible during peak times.
Meston says the worst time of time of day to run the dryer or dishwasher is between 4 and 6 pm.
That's when everyone is coming home to cook supper and running the air conditioning.
The last few days of heat have set new peak load demands.
Provincially, Meston says power providers have been able to keep up with demands and even pricing has been reasonable.
