Electricity use broke records on Monday as New Zealanders kept warm in the cold snap which affected most of the country.
With the extreme weather now covering the North Island, where the bulk of the country's population lives, Transpower was expecting usage to be even higher yesterday.
Nationally, 134.7GWh of electricity was used on Monday, 3.57GWh more than the previous high on Monday, July 25, Transpower communications manager Adele Fitzgerald said.
The peak demand figure was 7048MW at 6pm on Monday, 120MW higher than on July 25.
At 7.30am yesterday, demand was 50MW higher than the corresponding time on Monday, indicating records might be broken again yesterday, she said.
In the South, where temperatures did not rise above zero in Queenstown and Ranfurly and only reached 5degC in Dunedin and Oamaru on Monday, power usage was also well up, Delta network services manager Lindsay McLennan said.
Energy use on Monday on the Dunedin network was 3.75GWh, 11% higher than last Friday and 1.6% more than on July 25, he said.
In Central Otago/Queenstown Lakes, energy use on Monday was 1.86GWh, up 8.8% on last Friday but slightly lower than the 1.89GWh on July 25.
Delta had dealt with several weather-related faults since Monday which had affected customers in the Otago Peninsula, Mt Cargill, Taieri Mouth, Bannockburn and Ripponvale areas, as well as Dalefield, near Queenstown, Mr McLennan said.
At Millers Flat, 161 customers lost power at 3.23am yesterday after trees fell on a line. It was expected all but two customers would have power restored by last night.
