(WEAU) -- When the heat gets as oppressive as it is this week, most of us crank the AC, and probably just let it run. But have you ever thought about what the heat means for your power company?

We visited with Xcel Energy staff on Monday to see how they prepare for an extreme heat wave. Staff there told us when everyone in the entire city has their air on full blast for days on end; the power company's system begins to get a little stressed.

These Xcel employees man the dispatch and control room 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

“If we have any types of problems with overloads or outages that need to be restored we dispatch crews out there in a safe and timely fashion and try to get our customers restored as quickly as possible,” Xcel manager Ray Jasicki tells us.

Meteorologists on staff keep an eye on storm cells that could cause damage and periods of extreme heat that could test the system, like the weather this week.

“When we have multiple days of heat you have an increased demand on the transformers, typically we use the nighttime to cool the transformers and get everything back to normal before the heat comes back during the day. It just causes our equipment to go through those load cycles more quickly than normal,” Jasicki explains.

Jasicki says the added stress doesn't cause any damage to equipment; employees just want to keep an extra eye on it. As a precaution Xcel crews also halt all maintenance work on the system during heat waves.

But if you do experience an outage, Xcel spokesperson Liz Wolf Green has one piece of advice.

“If there is a power outage, customers be patient our crews are responding as quickly and as safely as possible in these adverse conditions and they are doing all they can to restore power as quickly as possible,” she says.

Xcel did reiterate that its system has been built to withstand heavy use, like five days in a row of everyone in town blasting their air conditioning.