Aug 30, 2019   SOURCE: BusinessWire

El Paso Electric Customers Set a New Peak Demand for Electricity

On Monday, August 26, 2019, El Paso Electric Company (EPE) (NYSE: EE) customers set a new peak demand of approximately 1,986 megawatts (MW), 2.9% or 57 MW higher than the peak established on June 26, 2017. This preliminary indication is still subject to final verification.

This marks the second time this year that a new peak has been set as just a few weeks ago on Wednesday, August 7, EPE customers had set a peak demand of approximately 1,952 MW, which was about 1% higher of the previous record set in 2017.

The region experienced unseasonably hot weather this late in the summer, which increased energy demand and electricity usage. Typical factors that lead to new peak demands are gradual annual increases in the customer base, adoption of refrigerated air conditioning, as well as increasingly hot weather. A new annual peak has been set by EPE customers in 17 out of the last 19 years.

“Over the last two years, since we previously experienced a record-breaking peak, our customer base has grown by more than 11,000 customers,” shares EPE interim CEO Adrian J. Rodriguez. “While the growth and development of our service region is an exciting trajectory, we are consistently managing our infrastructure and measuring the need for additional energy production and delivery to meet customer demand. At the same time, reminding the community on ways to conserve energy can be beneficial to customers’ bills while helping protect the environment.”

For a list of energy saving tips, visit epelectric.com.

About El Paso Electric

El Paso Electric is a regional electric utility providing generation, transmission and distribution service to approximately 428,000 retail and wholesale customers in a 10,000 square mile area of the Rio Grande valley in west Texas and southern New Mexico. El Paso Electric's common stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol EE.