Saturday's Earth Hour was a bit of a bust in the Tri-Cities with just a modest reduction in energy use, according to BC Hydro.
On Saturday evening, the three communities reduced their electricity use by just 1.9 per cent each during Earth Hour - the same as Burnaby and just slightly better than Surrey at 1.8 per cent.
Hydro reported out the energy reduction that it recorded over a one hour period between 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.
Meanwhile, communities on Vancouver Island took top honors for shutting out the lights and cutting power use.
The top communities were Comox and Courtenay, which used 9.8 per cent less power. The worst-ranked were Enderby (0.2 per cent), Salmon Arm (0.2 per cent), and Chilliwack (0.3 per cent).
Overall, British Columbians saved 136 megawatt hours of electricity and reduced the provincial electricity load by 1.95 per cent during Earth Hour on Saturday night - the equivalent of turning off more than 10 million 12.5-watt LED light bulbs.
Earth Hour is an annual global event hosted by the World Wildlife Fund and supported by BC Hydro. This year marks the sixth year of BC Hydro's support of the event.
The goal of Earth Hour is to encourage individuals to turn off unnecessary lights and electronics to conserve power and in doing so, demonstrate support for climate change reduction efforts.
This year, many BC Hydro account holders were able to track their electricity use by logging onto MyHydro - their online account - at www.bchydro.com/myhydro. They were able to see the hourly breakdown for their account and compare Earth Hour electricity use with their use on the Saturday prior to Earth Hour.
Since 2007, BC Hydro's Power Smart programs have saved close to 4,300 gigawatt hours per year of electricity - enough to power 390,000 B.C. homes.
For more information on Earth Hour and the by-community breakdown, visit http://bit.ly/ZQHqcT
- with files from Surrey Leader, Comox Valley Record
