B.C. swelters under record highs

Seven all-time temperature highs were set across British Columbia on Wednesday, with most of the records falling in the Fraser Valley, the Greater Vancouver area and on Vancouver Island.

Yet cooler heads prevailed as consumers responded to calls to conserve energy, despite the blistering heat, after a BC Hydro transformer in downtown Vancouver failed earlier in the week.

Skimboarders at Spanish Banks beach beat the heat as temperatures soared in Vancouver.
(CBC)

Environment Canada said the Interior town of Lillooet was B.C.'s hot spot Wednesday at 39.9 C.

Meteorologist Don Tater said the record temperatures are due to hot winds from the Interior wafting out across the south coast. That weather pattern should end on Thursday with the arrival of some cool breezes off the ocean, he said.

However, communities from Whistler, right through to Creston and up to Fort St. John, will continue to swelter for several more days, he said.

Despite the heat, the load on a critical electrical substation transformer serving downtown Vancouver decreased by 8,500 kilowatts Wednesday, after BC Hydro officials asked people to limit their power consumption.

Hydro said in a news release officials are concerned the use of air conditioning during the hot spell could overload the remaining transformer serving the downtown core. The area is currently being serviced by a single transformer while crews repair the second one, which failed July 5.

The high demand for power during hot spells is one reason it's time for people to find more sustainable ways of staying cool inside, said a climate expert with the City of Vancouver.

As temperatures climb, office buildings in Vancouver's downtown core are cutting power consumption, including air conditioning, while crews repair an overloaded transformer.
(CBC)

Vancouver's climate protection program manager, Sean Pander, said the giant energy pull from highrise air-conditioning systems is unsustainable.

"We've got a problem with hot weather now, but as the climate changes, we're going to see increasingly hot weather in the summer periods, so if it's a problem now, it's only going to get worse," Pander said.

Vancouver City Council has given staff a mandate to make green building design mandatory over the next 20 years and reduce energy consumption by 25 to 30 per cent by 2012.

Alternatives to air-conditioning systems include some surprisingly low-tech solutions, Pander said. "Looking to the future partly involves looking to the past and looking at natural ventilation."

That means windows that actually open, which could be good news to people shivering in icy office buildings while looking out the windows at the heat rising off the pavement.

Other low-tech ways to stay cool and save energy include keeping blinds closed, keeping lights off, and setting room temperatures to no cooler than 26 C, Pander said.