Pennsylvania Power & Light Co. customers set a record for electricity use Monday evening (2/6) and the utility expects high demand for power to continue for the next few days.

"We were able to meet the record demand for electricity and barring any unforeseen loss of major generation, we fully expect to have enough electricity available to continue to meet high customer demand," said Barry Trayers, PP&L's manager of Bulk Power Operations.

According to preliminary figures, PP&L's customers used 6,513,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. Final figures will be available Tuesday (2/7). The previous record for electricity use was 6,403,000 kwh, set Jan. 18, 1994.

The combination of low temperatures and high winds caused wind-chill-adjusted temperatures to plunge well below zero throughout much of PP&L's service territory. The cold trend is expected to continue through Wednesday (2/8) or Thursday (2/9).

"Bitter cold temperatures always correlate to high electricity demand," Trayers said. "It's indicative of what we saw last year during the cold spell in January. We learned from the experience last year and are better prepared to produce electricity in these kind of temperatures.

"We fully expect to get through this cold period without having to use emergency procedures that would affect customers."

PP&L is forecasting near record usage for Tuesday.