Earth Hour is more about awareness: IESO

Earth Hour Electricity Demand Canada saw measurable cuts as Ontario's IESO logged a 4% (560 MW) drop and BC Hydro reported 1.04%, highlighting conservation, peak demand trends, and power grid awareness.

People across Canada flicked off their lights for Earth Hour, but in two of the country's largest provinces the results were dimmer than in the past two years.

Ontario saw a four percent drop in electricity demand Saturday night during the annual Earth Hour observance, or enough to power a city the size of Brampton, Ontario's electricity system operator said Sunday.

The 560-megawatt decline represented a four percent decrease — less than the six per cent seen in 2009 and five per cent in 2008.

In British Columbia, BC Hydro said the province's electricity load dropped by 1.04 per cent between 8:30 and 9:30 p.m.

The drop in B.C. amounted to 64.6 megawatt hours of electricity.

That's less than the 1.1 per cent reduction in 2009 and two percent reduction in 2008, which organizers note is not a kilowatt contest overall in British Columbia.

Terry Young, with the Independent Electricity System Operator in Ontario, said the numbers may seem like a drop in the bucket but it's further evidence that energy consumption in the province is generally on the decline.

Earth Hour... isn't something that, as many note, won't fix Earth's problems in terms of electricity demand. What it is, is more of an awareness, he said.

People were turning off their lights and, intentionally left in the dark, stopped using as much electricity, and we could notice that. Any time we can notice something like that on a provincial scale then it does have some sort of an impact.

The weaker numbers more likely reflect the weather than a waning interest, Young said. The temperatures in Ontario were much cooler this year than during Earth Hour last year, so even though lights were shut off, heaters were running, he said.

Last summer — the other time of year when electricity consumption makes headlines — hourly peak demand only rose above 24,000 megawatts four times, Young said.

Compare that with 2006, when Ontario, where Toronto hit its energy target recently, broke its hourly peak demand record at the end of a heat wave, with demand exceeding 27,000 megawatts.

While that difference can partly be attributed to a cooler Ontario summer in 2009, conservation programs are making a difference, Young said.

Demand today is not where it was five or six years ago, he said.

Canadians joined people in more than 120 countries around the world who, with Canada a leader in the worldwide Earth Hour event, flicked off lights at home between 8:30 and 9:30 p.m., attended events illuminated by candlelight or watched iconic landmarks fall dark.

Premier Dalton McGuinty said he spent Earth Hour at home, playing poker with his son Connor and wife Terri.

I wiped up, he said.

We shut everything down. It's kind of an interesting thing. We put on some candles and we played cards. So it's kind of old-fashioned, it's kind of fun. This is what they used to do, I guess.

The World Wildlife Fund, which started Earth Hour in 2007 in Sydney, Australia, said more than 300 Canadian cities and municipalities had pledged to take part in the lights-out campaign that night.

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