Pedro de Aurrecoechea, vice president of UTE, said, "We had the maximum values of the records of summer. We have reached approximately 1,450 megawatts at peak hour at some point about 9:30 am, 10 pm. This is due to temperature and of course the fact that there are more air conditioners installed“
He added that "In Uruguay two daily peaks are produced, one on the evening and another at noon. Usually, the peak of that evening is much stronger than the one at noon. This year there is little difference between noon and that evening. This is that, the peak temperature hours are just about noon, which can affirm that it is the presence of higher amount of air conditioning. "
Aurrecoechea explained that "compared to last winter, when we were at 1,680, we are now in 1450. We are still higher in winter than in summer, but given the structure of demand we are within normal parameters. The winter raised relatively little, but instead demand in summer had risen sharply.
Moreover, the general secretary of OSE, Daoiz Uriarte, reported that peak this summer exceeded the one of last summer. Regarding numbers, the daily consumption is 620 million liters in the metropolitan area. That's about 300 liters a day per person.
"This represents an increase of about 25% of usual and is virtually 100% higher than the OMS estimates a normal supply. Uruguayans consume almost twice what would be normal for anyone in the world" Uriarte said.

(www.montevideo.com.uy, 15 February 2010)