The extreme cold has contributed to the province setting three records in a row for electricity consumption this week.

The Alberta Energy System Operator, or AESO, reports on December 8, 2016 between 5-6 p.m., Alberta was using a record hourly average amount of electricity at 11,442 MW.

That surpassed the previous records set December 7 and December 5.

AESO says the cold weather, reduced daylight hours and Christmas lighting were contributing factors to the power usage. Another factor that contributed was the low market price for electricity. This prevented price sensitive industrial facilities from going offline during peak hours.

The average wholesale price for electricity during that peak hour was approximately $30/MWh.

Due to significant supply and a healthy reserve margin, the AESO operations team was not concerned about grid reliability overall during the week of record setting usage.

The records were the first set since January 2015 as last winter saw very mild temperatures.