Appalachian Power customers in Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee set an unofficial all-time peak demand of 8,697 megawatts (MW) at 8 a.m. Friday, Feb. 20. Arctic cold weather across the company’s entire service area helped push electricity consumption past the previous record of 8,460 MW set on Jan. 30, 2014.

“Several of the communities we serve set new record lows over the past week,” said Charles Patton, Appalachian Power president and COO. “Customer demand is going to increase at times like this when families have to keep warm.”

The new company peak will be confirmed next month when additional metering information is available to verify customer consumption. A megawatt is a measurement of electricity demand equal to one million watts. One hundred watts will light a 100-watt light bulb.

Appalachian Power has approximately 1 million customers in Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee (as AEP Appalachian Power). It is a unit of American Electric Power, one of the largest electric utilities in the United States, which delivers electricity to more than 5 million customers in 11 states. AEP ranks among the nation’s largest generators of electricity, owning nearly 38,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the U.S. AEP also owns the nation’s largest electricity transmission system, a nearly 39,000-mile network that includes more 765 kilovolt extra-high voltage transmission lines than all other U.S. transmission systems combined.