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Area electricity providers were ready to meet demand during this week’s heat wave.  Justin Foss with Alliant Energy says a new daily record was hit for usage during the day on Wednesday.  He says a total of 3,724 megawatts were used which breaks the old record set last year.

Foss says the amount of energy use would have been higher if they would not have initiated their appliance cycling program.  Appliance cycling is a program where participating residential customers have a small control switch installed on or near their central air conditioner that is turned off in 15-minute intervals to reduce overall energy usage.

He notes they work with Midwest Independent System Operators who runs the power grid that serves the greater Midwest area and stretches into Canada to help meet the demand.  Prior to last year’s peak usage, the last time the highest energy usage record was set was August of 2003.

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