If We Run The Thing Full Blast It Won’t Get Anywhere Near 78 Anyway

Like we’ve said before, I’d be less likely to crank up the A/C as soon as I get home if the subway car on the ride home was properly cooled:

Mayor Bloomberg scolded New Yorkers yesterday for not doing enough to conserve energy in their homes, as the city remained in the grip of a stultifying heat wave.

“We think of the big buildings using the power. All of them have cut back,” Bloomberg said. “It’s in the residential neighborhoods — if we want to keep the power going, we’re all just going to have to conserve. I’ve done it in my house — please, I cannot stress enough, do it in yours.”

As temperatures soared to 100 degrees yesterday, Con Edison’s fragile energy grid mostly managed to hold, but there were scattered outages. Late yesterday, there were about 4,600 customers — approximately 18,000 people — without power.

. . .

Energy usage peaked at 13,141 megawatts at 5 p.m., which topped the 13,103 megawatts the company set at 5 p.m. on Monday, according to Con Ed spokesman Michael Clendenin.

New Yorkers also pushed the statewide demand for electricity to a new peak yesterday.

The Independent System Operator, which oversees the state power grid, reported a record 33,939 megawatts of average electricity usage between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m., topping Tuesday’s late-afternoon peak by 60 megawatts.

. . .

Bloomberg lauded the managers of big office buildings for making great efforts to cut back on energy use, but noted usage peaked during evening hours — after people had returned home.

“We do need to be just as responsible at night in our homes,” he said. “Those are the hours when the strain on the power grid is at its greatest because people around the city are getting home, turning on the air conditioners, cooking appliances and televisions.”

Last night, as the night before, the Empire State Building’s tower lights were kept off to conform to Bloomberg’s guidelines to conserve energy.

The landmark building also reduced energy by dimming lights in public corridors and the observatory floor, and asked tenants to shut off lights in unused offices.

Bloomberg urged people to turn the thermostats on their air conditioners up, as temperatures were set to hit 99 degrees today before dipping into the low 90s tomorrow.

Relief is expected over the weekend, with temps dropping into the 80s.

“I know everybody would like to be cool, but 78 degrees is a lot better than it would be if we didn’t have any electricity,” he said. “I can tell you if everybody doesn’t cooperate, we aren’t going to [get through this].”