As Kansas is blasted with historically hot temperatures, Evergy and the regional power grid supporting the state said they will be able to cope with a record demand for power.

Much of Kansas is under an excessive heat warning through Thursday, with a heat index for Monday expected to top 120 degrees. The heat index of 124 on Sunday broke the unofficial record for Topeka and scorching heat is expected to continue throughout the week before cooler temperatures move in over the weekend.

The record heat has forced officials across the state to scramble to cope. Schools have adjusted busing and sports schedules and moved recess indoors. Meanwhile, at the Statehouse in Topeka, tours of the famed dome were canceled because of the sweltering air that rose to the top of the building.

A sign warns Kansas Statehouse visitors that tours of the building's dome are canceled Monday due to record high temperatures, which are expected to blast Kansas for the remainder of the week.

About 1,450 homes and businesses found themselves without electrical power Sunday afternoon in Lawrence after a car hit a power pole, said Gina Penzig, spokeswoman for Evergy. The heat index in that city reached 134, the National Weather Service reported.

Chuck Caisley, Evergy's senior vice president and chief customer officer, said in a statement that while there have been "some outages" in recent days, "it’s been within normal expectations for extremely hot weather" and crews are working to quickly restore power, even despite the conditions.

“Our system is reliable,” Caisley said in a statement. “Evergy performs seasonal maintenance work on its power plants and transmission and distribution systems during mild weather to help prepare them to meet customer needs during the hot summer months."

Evergy has said it is prepared to meet the demand for electricity that is expected as part of a record heat wave currently blasting Kansas.

Not every state has had a smooth experience with the heat wave.

In Texas, that state's electric grid, which is unique nationally in that it is confined just to the Lone Star State, has twice asked customers in recent days to conserve power, most recently from 7 to 10 p.m. on Sunday night.

The grid operator, ERCOT, stressed that the request didn't mean it was in an emergency situation.

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Southwest Power Pool expects to have capacity to meet sky-high demand

Kansas is a part of the Southwest Power Pool, the regional grid that covers a 15-state territory stretching from New Mexico to North Dakota.

The SPP has made no such move to ask consumers to save power. But it did issue a "conservative operations advisory," a step designed to warn power operators about higher-than-expected demand, as well as less windy conditions across the region.

"SPP expects to have enough generating capacity to meet the demand, and while our assessments don’t raise reliability concerns, we have tools and procedures ready to make changes as necessary to responsibly and economically keep the lights on," Meghan Sever, a senior communication strategist for SPP, said in an email.

Those types of alerts aren't unprecedented — the SPP has issued at least five such advisories this summer alone and it does not require power conservation. Sever said they did not anticipate escalating their advisories to utilities and the public but added she also could not rule such a step out.

The SPP's summer reliability assessment, released in May, said there is a 99.5% probability the system will have sufficient capacity to meet demand for electricity.

At that time, Bruce Rew, the SPP's senior vice president of operations, said there were no reliability concerns relayed by the report but said they were prepared to cope with any "exceptional operational circumstances."

Jim Zakoura, an attorney specializing in energy matters who routinely advises clients on SPP operations, said that the key factors involved were demand for electricity, the amount of wind available and the ability to keep the region's coal and gas-fired plants online.

While it was unprecedented to have six or seven days of record temperatures, Zakoura said he had seen no signs of trouble at this point.

"There's no indication there isn't sufficient power to meet the estimated demand," he said.

Evergy and the SPP alike have issued broader encouragement to consumers to use less power all summer long, including turning up the thermostat, cooking with smaller appliances, blocking sunlight during the hottest part of the day, and sealing doors and windows.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas heat dome: Evergy and power grid cope with record temperatures