City Water and Light breaks record with usage during winter storm

JONESBORO, Ark. (KAIT) - City water and Light in Jonesboro said this past winter storm caused them to use more power than they have ever had before, and it has got them thinking about the future.

At one point on December 23 consumers reached 299 megawatts in one hour which ended up putting a strain on the system.

“It was certainly a high demand and thankfully our folks were there on the spot and ready to respond,” Slade Mitchell said.

Mitchell is the Energy Marketing Administrator for City Water and Light in Jonesboro, he said it’s all about keeping everything on and avoiding those major blackouts you see in storms like this.

“We continue to replace wood polls with steel polls, we’ve replaced some old equipment at substations, to make sure we are ready,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell said he expects there to be another batch of cold weather at some point this winter and said don’t be surprised if we see that record broken again. If it is Mitchell said will be ready no matter what.

“We will continue to work on maintaining and increasing reliability in certain parts of our system,” Mitchell said. “As a whole, we are in really good shape, generation wise in our portfolio we still have access generation to serve our customer’s needs.”

The previous record was set in February 2022 at 295 megawatts.

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