The heatwave hovering over Pittsburgh is straining the electric grid, leading to outages.<\/p>\n
Many people may associate power outages with severe storms. Heat doesn\u2019t look as dramatic, but it can still disrupt the power grid.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s similar to when a cell phone gets hot and its screen goes dark, said Alyssa Battaglia, external communications associate with Duquesne Light.<\/p>\n
Heat puts stress on electrical equipment, making power plants and the wires that carry electricity less efficient. At the same time, people are using air conditioning and demanding more from the power grid. Wires can be overloaded and damaged by the combination of heat and demand.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aWhen hundreds of thousands of air conditioners and heavy appliances are running at once, in addition to overnight temperatures remaining high, the grid doesn’t get a chance to cool off and recover before the next day’s demand arrives,\u201d Battaglia said.<\/p>\n
More than 1,500 Duquesne customers were without power on Wednesday around 4:30 p.m.<\/p>\n
Duquesne Light\u2019s incident management team is active this week, responding to damaged lines.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aWe try to isolate the outage by rerouting electricity, so to speak, to bring as many customers back in service as we possibly can,\u201d Battaglia said. However, people living closest to the damage wires will likely be without power until lines can be repaired.<\/p>\n