After multiple days of excessive heat, JEA is reporting a system peak for energy usage reaching 2,869 megawatts on Tuesday. Temperatures hit 99 degrees that day with a heat index of 109.
Adding the daily peaks during the last three weeks of the heat wave. JEA customers have been using between 22 and 28-hundred megawatts of power EVERY DAY, and have topped 28-hundred for the last three days
To put it in perspective, in 2021, the average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. residential utility customer was 10,632 kilowatthours (kWh), an average of about 886 kWh per month. Louisiana had the highest annual electricity consumption at 14,302 kWh per residential customer, and Hawaii had the lowest at 6,369 kWh per residential customer.
One megawatt equals one million watts or 1,000 kilowatts, roughly enough electricity for the instantaneous demand of 750 homes at once.
JEA’s all-time system peak for summer was set on August 7, 2007, reaching 2,937 megawatts. This record could be broken next week when schools in Duval County resume.
JEA provides electric power to more than 514,000 customers.