Summertime months approach record setting power load demands for TVA
Last Friday, members of the media were invited to Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant to learn about the different ways the TVA workers at the plant have been preparing for summer.
More specifically, TVA has completed seasonal readiness reviews to ensure the plant’s generating assets are prepared to meet the weather conditions expected.
TVA’s Public Relations Director Scott Fielder shared how important these maintenance reviews are in ensuring power demands that can skyrocket up and down in accordance with the weather.
“We thought we were going to set a July power record on Tuesday of this week,” Fielder explained. “However, a few rain showers developed over N Alabama and SE Tennessee reducing peak demand to 29,821 MW. We still may hit a July record but the temperatures for the remainder of the 10-day period are forecasted to be below average.”
While the week did not result in record breaking power loads, Fielder said it was still the sixth largest power load demand in the TVA’s history. 
And because of rising temperatures like those seen in the past weeks, TVA officials spent this past Spring completing over 75 different projects at Brown’s Ferry and other plants to maximize capabilities and assure reliability.
There are also programs in place to help customers keep their power demand, as well as their power bill, as low as possible.
“The best thing that a homeowner can do right now to save money on their power bill is to get their HVAC unit checked because 50% of your power bill this summer is going to be cooling your home,” Fielder explained. “We will pay a $50 rebate for homeowners to get their HVAC unit checked out.”
This program can be used by visiting energyright.com. Additionally, if the check shows that a customer’s A/C unit is on its last leg, the TVA is also offering rebates of $1,500 to replace it with a new energy efficient unit. There are also specific programs for business owners to lower their costs.
“We are offering businesses up to $3 million annually to make energy efficient upgrades. So far, 1,700 businesses have used the incentives, saving over $115 million in energy costs.”
Fielder explained that by investing in homeowners and business owners, they can reduce around 2200 megawatts over the next 10 years to offset some of the growth the area is experiencing.
To meet the region’s growth, TVA is building more than 3,800 megawatts of new generation that includes solar, energy storage, combustion turbines and combined-cycle natural gas. In total, TVA has more than 4,000 megawatts of solar energy either in service or under construction.
