The survey found that for the week ending Aug. 5, Americans consumed 98,583 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity, erasing the previous single-week record of 96,314 GWh set during the week ending July 22, for a 2.4 percent increase.
Once again the nation's electric system withstood a severe test," says EEI President Tom Kuhn. "Apart from some localized outages, the system worked, the power remained on and the transmission grid was resilient."
Kuhn reiterated the importance of the utility industry's mission to continue investing more to expand and upgrade the nation's high-voltage transmission grid and its local distribution networks, but he also noted the critical role played by energy efficiency and conservation.
Investing in energy infrastructure is vital, but unless we significantly improve our ability as a nation to use existing energy resources more efficiently, it won't be enough," says Kuhn.
Utilities already have undertaken many efficiency initiatives, Kuhn notes, which have enabled consumers to save nearly 750 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) during the past 15 years.
EEI's "Weekly Electric Output" survey is available to EEI members and other subscribers. To learn more, visit the EEI Web site.
