British Columbians save 65 megawatt hours of electricity and reduced the provincial electricity load by one per cent during this year’s Earth Hour, but Burns Lake residents stayed the same.
BC Hydro indicated in a media release last week that the province-wide electrical savings during Earth Hour 2014 were equivalent to turning off approximately 1.4 million lights. For some reason, though, Burns Lake residents between 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. March 29 had no saving.
Burns Lake, which in the past has been an Earth Hour leader, stayed par for the course.
“Our records indicate Burns Lake reported zero electricity savings – no increase or decrease in electricity consumption,” said Will Mbaho, spokes person for BC Hydro.
This year’s Earth Hour leader was the municipality of Whistler, which reduced its energy usage by six per cent.
While this year’s Earth Hour savings may have been impressive, they were down significantly from last year’s totals. In 2013, provincial residents saved 136 megawatt hours of electricity during Earth Hour, or 1.95 per cent of the provincial electricity load.
Earth Hour, an annual global event hosted by the World Wildlife Fund, encourages individuals to turn off unnecessary lights and electronics to demonstrate support for climate change reduction efforts.
BC Hydro customers can view their energy use for Saturday evening by logging onto MyHydro — their online account at bchydro.com/myhydro. They can get an hourly breakdown of their electricity use.