TVA Conserves While Adding Capacity
Published Feb 16, 2009
Now in its 75th year of service, the Tennessee Valley Authority is the nation’s largest public power producer.
Adding significant new services while preaching conservation, the Tennessee Valley Authority finds itself coming at energy use from every angle during its 75th anniversary year.
On the conservation front, the nation’s largest public power producer is working with its power distributors to help customers reduce usage. In addition to looking at waste and inefficiency, TVA is also tracking usage at peak times, when it has to purchase power off the grid to supplement its own generating capacity.
“We set a goal of reducing energy use by 1,400 megawatts between now and the end of 2012, and that’ll be a combination of efficiency programs,” says Dr. Joseph Hoagland, vice president of energy efficiency and demand response for TVA. “What we’re trying to do is cut that usage during summertime afternoons, which is the most expensive time for us ... to provide energy.”
Residential energy-conservation programs in effect or being studied include offering incentives for use of higher-efficiency major appliances and conducting home audits to check for proper insulation and other means of energy reduction.
In addition, Hoagland says, TVA and its distributors are looking at the current rate structure. “Right now we charge the same price for energy, regardless of what time of day [customers] use it. If we move toward a pricing structure that’s more expensive at certain times of day, will they modify their behavior themselves? We think that’ll be the case with the industrial and commercial folks, but we’re not so clear on the residential side.”
Rebates for Reductions
Homeowners might respond better to the carrot than the stick, so programs that will provide rebates for reducing energy usage are coming into play. Cleveland (Tenn.) Utilities and six other TVA distributors mounted one pilot effort from March through July 2008, and it produced evidence that some consumers are willing to shoulder part of the burden of reducing their carbon footprint.
“We were asked to conduct 50 energy surveys, and we did 49,” says Rick Lawson, manager of administrative services at Cleveland Utilities. “We looked at insulation, windows, heat pumps – all the things in an energy audit – and then told them how they could become more energy efficient.”
Consumers were eligible to receive up to $1,000 in rebates for upgrading their windows, insulation, heating/cooling systems and other energy-related improvements, and many took the bait.
“It gave us an opportunity to get into the customers’ homes and give them some pointers,” Lawson says. “We’re hoping that this will be a program that TVA will put into place and open up to all their distributors.”
More Generating Capacity
The conservation programs are one side of a TVA coin that also features expansion of production capability, and much of that is expected to come from nuclear power. In 2008, TVA finished restoration work on the first reactor at its Browns Ferry plant in Alabama. Completing the second unit at its Watts Barr facility in Tennessee is expected to be wrapped up in 2010.
Meanwhile, work at the Bellefonte plant in Alabama, which has two units partially constructed and two more in the planning stage, is uncertain due to rapidly inflating construction costs.
Story by Joe Morris
Photo by Ian Curcio
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