The sun sets behind 42nd Street in Manhattan during a power outage in New York City on July 13, 2019. JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images

New York Utility company Con Edison President Tim Cawley said Friday at a press conference that the heat wave has “no impact at all” in the infrastructure that was damaged in last weekend’s blackout that saw 73,000 customers without power. Cawley said that the equipment involved in that event has been repaired and that the company prepares for periods of intense heat throughout the year.

His comments come after Mayor Bill de Blasio ordered office buildings 100 feet or taller to set their thermostats to 78 degrees to conserve energy, and is asking New Yorkers to do the same in their homes to avoid power disruptions throughout the weekend.

Cawley said that the mayor’s call for conserving energy is good for three reasons: “it’s good for the environment, it lowers bills, and in a period like this, it just takes a little bit of the edge off the demand on the system.”

He added that New York’s peak energy consumption happens on weekdays and that while power demand is still high on weekends, the grid can handle that amount.

“We’re ready for what the heat will bring, and as I said, we expect demands this weekend to rival all-time weekend peaks,” Cawley said. “The system overall peaks during the weekday, and I think it’s fairly intuitive, when all the businesses are in, on a Tuesday or Wednesday, the demand is the highest, on the weekend it remains high, but it’s not the peak demand. When we compare weekend to weekend, we are going to rival all-time demand.”

Cawley said Con Edison is “poised to respond” to any outages that might happen this weekend. The demand on the system this weekend is projected to be between 11500 to 11900 megawatts. One megawatt, Cawley explained, powers about one thousand homes, and the system is designed to handle 13200 megawatts of demand.

When comparing to previous weekends of similar usage, and Cawley said that there were scattered outages despite the system’s performance being “very strong.”