By Julie Bierach, KWMU
St. Louis, MO – The extreme temperatures in the region are causing an increased energy demand on Ameren U-E.
The company has put extra crews on alert to fix any outages that may occur. Tim Fox, a spokesman for Ameren U-E says customers can help prevent outages by turning their thermostats up one degree.
"Every one degree that you raise your thermostat you can cut your energy demand by about 2 to 3-percent. And we think that if you bump it up by one degree you're not going to make your house significantly warmer but you will have an impact."
So far, the company is reporting only a few small outages that are typical for an extreme heat wave and take 2 to 4 hours to fix.