The recent Manhattan blackout this past Saturday came as a shock to 73,000 ConEd customers, and while it may have been corrected quickly experts now predict it might not be the last we see this summer.
News about the heatwave hitting the city at the end of the week has been circulating since early Monday. As temperatures start rising above the 90s and New Yorkers start blasting their air conditioners, massive surges in electricity can be expected in major metropolitan areas. A professor at Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center, Jay Apt, told USAToday that the high demand for air conditioners during the summer months will almost always result in some electricity failures due to its power intensity.
Although the past blackout that affected nearly 73,000 people was not caused by heat, Allan Drury, a Con Edison spokesperson, stated there’s a possibility of more “scattered outages” in areas of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. Manhattan is specifically at risk due to underground delivery systems that might not respond well to the surge in temperature and increased usage of electricity to power A/Cs.
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