Senate Panel OKs TVA Nominees
The U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee voted March 4 to recommend that the full Senate confirm President Barack Obama’s nominees to the TVA Board of Directors.

The committee’s approval means that the nominations of Drs. Marilyn Brown and Barbara Haskew, Neil McBride and Bill Sansom will go to the Senate floor for final approval. Their confirmations would leave vacant just one of nine seats on TVA’s board.

Obama nominated Haskew, a professor at Middle Tennessee State University, and McBride, an Oak Ridge, TN, attorney, last September. Three months later, he tapped Brown, a Georgia Tech professor, and Sansom, a Knoxville, TN, businessman and former TVA chairman.

The nominees were scheduled for a Feb. 10 confirmation hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which is chaired by U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-CA. After a lengthy wait – five months, in fact, for Haskew and McBride – the nominees arrived in Washington, D.C. for their hearing just in time to see the nation’s capital paralyzed by its biggest snowstorm in nearly a century.

As lawmakers juggled schedules with an eye toward escaping D.C. before the blizzard hit, the hearing was moved up a day and significantly shortened – the four nominees spent just 40 minutes testifying before the committee.

After the hearing, Boxer said she foresaw no “bumps in the road” for the nominees. Brown, Haskew, McBride and Sansom were also endorsed by the committee’s ranking Republican, U.S. Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma.

The nominees pledged to do whatever they could to make sure TVA continues to supply the Tennessee Valley with clean, low-cost energy. Each nominee said nuclear power has a role to play as TVA seeks to make its portfolio cleaner.

Should they win Senate confirmation, Haskew and Sansom would serve as TVA directors until 2014. Brown’s term would end in 2012, while McBride would serve into 2013.

February Big Month For APPA, NRECA
This winter has been colder and snowier than usual, but there was plenty of heat generated last month at two big utility-industry gatherings.

More than 6,000 representatives of the nation’s electric cooperatives descended on Atlanta, GA, in mid-February for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) Annual Meeting. During that event, former TVPPA Chairman Eston Glover, the president/CEO at Pennyrile RECC, Hopkinsville, KY, was elected to the NRECA Board of Directors.

One week later, officials from the nation’s municipal electric utilities descended on Washington, D.C., for the American Public Power Association (APPA) annual Legislative Rally.

TVPPA President/CEO Jack Simmons attended both events and noted their juxtaposition with current political events.

“There’s a great deal of very strong feeling about what’s happening – and what could happen – in Congress with regard to our industry,” Simmons said. “These two meetings demonstrated that cooperatives and municipals in the Valley and elsewhere are fully engaged in letting their elected representatives know where they stand on the issues.”

NRECA President/CEO Glenn English went so far as to tell the nation’s cooperative leaders that they can break the partisan stalemate on energy-related legislation if they come together to champion a single position with one voice.

“Electric cooperatives cannot afford scorched-earth politics. We cannot afford to participate in that kind of political debate. That divides co-ops,” English said.

English also took aim at President Obama’s proposed budget for fiscal 2011, which cuts the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) electric-loan program by nearly $3 billion but leaves intact significant tax breaks for the remainder of the electric utility industry.

“That’s discriminating against the not-for-profit, consumer-owned electric cooperatives,” English said. “Not only is it not fair, it doesn’t make sense and it doesn’t pass basic arithmetic. We must oppose this discrimination against our members.”

English told cooperative leaders that they face a dizzying array of public-policy challenges, but warned that one – the prospect of the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulating carbon emissions from stationary sources under the Clean Air Act – is particularly troublesome.

Should Congress fail to adopt climate-change legislation, English said, EPA could step in to regulate carbon emissions. He encouraged cooperative leaders to back proposed measures in both houses of Congress that would effectively prevent EPA from taking that step.

In the House of Representatives, that’s HR 4572, co-authored by U.S. Reps. Jo Ann Emerson, R-MO; Collin Peterson, D-MN and Ike Skelton, D-MO. The Senate counterpart is a “resolution of disapproval” sponsored by Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski.

The Murkowski measure, in fact, engendered a testy exchange between APPA and two House members.

On Feb. 23, during the APPA Legislative Rally, APPA President/CEO Mark Crisson sent members of the Senate a letter of support for the Murkowski bill. APPA has been on record since 2007 in supporting comprehensive climate-change legislation, but believes “EPA should not move forward to regulate under the (Clean Air Act) in the absence of such legislation,” according to the letter.

Two days later, U.S. Reps. Henry Waxman, D-CA and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Ed Markey, D-MA and chairman of the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee, took APPA to task.
 
The congressmen said in a letter that they were “disappointed” in APPA’s stance and said EPA’s finding that greenhouse gas emissions from automobile tailpipes endanger public health and welfare is “supported by an overwhelming amount of scientific research that has been produced, reviewed and validated.”

TVPPA Government Relations Director Phillip Burgess was on hand as a resource for TVPPA members. As usual, he had at the ready a list of TVPPA’s positions on key, Valley-specific issues including:

• TVA’s Board of Directors: TVPPA’s members are pleased that President Obama’s four nominees – Dr. Marilyn Brown, Dr. Barbara Haskew, Neil McBride and Bill Sansom – have been heard by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and hope the nominees are confirmed soon.
• Wolf Creek/Center Hill dams: TVPPA members are asking Congress to add language to the 2010 Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) that directs the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to treat much-needed repairs at Wolf Creek and Center Hill as “dam safety” issues – not as merely “maintenance” issues, as the Corps contends. The difference could mean hundreds of millions of dollars to Valley ratepayers.

TVPPA thanks U.S. Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, both R-TN, and U.S. Reps. Bart Gordon, John Tanner, Lincoln Davis, Jimmy Duncan and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and U.S. Reps. Ben Chandler, Ed Whitfield, Hal Rogers and Geoff Davis of Kentucky for their support on this issue.

TVPPA Purchasing Conference On Tap
Call it TVPPA’s “The More, The Merrier” discount.

It’s a golden opportunity for TVPPA members to save on registration for the Association’s Purchasing Conference, set for March 29-31 at the Nashville, TN, Marriott Airport hotel. Utilities that register at least three employees at the same time will be rewarded with a $50-per-person discount.

The conference proper begins with a reception Monday evening, March 29, but Bill Agee of the Institute of Supply Management (ISM) will spend that day teaching “Purchasing & Supply Management,” a core course in TVPPA’s Utility Purchasing Professional (UPP) program.

Agee is scheduled to cover topics including cost/benefit analysis and benchmarking in the pre-conference session, which is scheduled to start at 8:30 a.m. CT. Prospective attendees may register via the Public Power Academy at www.tvppa.com or by calling TVPPA’s Education & Training Department at 423.648.2464.

Rody Blevins, president/CEO at Volunteer EC, Decatur, TN, and chairman of TVPPA’s Valley Supply Chain Committee, is set to begin the Purchasing Conference Tuesday morning, March 30. Among the speakers scheduled are TVA’s Mike Ingram, Dr. Kimball Bullington of Middle Tennessee State University, Steve Gwin of Warren RECC, Bowling Green, KY, Mike Babineaux of Babineaux Educational Services and Training, Stuart C. Irby Co.’s Eddie Moak, UtiliCor President Rick Morrison and F & M Bank Vice President Fred Landiss.

Prospective attendees can register for the Purchasing Conference by filling out and mailing the form attached to the conference brochure, going online to www.tvppa.com or by calling TVPPA’s Conference Desk at 423.648.2468.

'Responding To Challenges' Annual Theme
The theme for TVPPA’s 64th Annual Conference didn’t come as a bolt from the blue.

“It evolved when we sat down as a staff to talk about what the focus of this year’s Conference should be,” said TVPPA Conferences Director Creed Crowder. “It just kind of bubbled up.”

What finally came out of the oven was “Responding to Valley Energy Challenges,” a topic that Crowder said fits the times as well as any theme could.

“It’s certainly an exciting time in the electric-utility industry,” he said. “There are certainly going to be paradigm shifts and changes in the way our members do business in the next few years.”

To that end, TVPPA members attending May 17-19 at the Savannah, GA, Marriott Riverfront will hear from speakers with a variety of perspectives.

Change, in fact, will come right off the bat, as TVPPA’s annual business meeting has been moved to the top of the first day’s agenda. After that meeting, TVPPA Washington Representative Deborah Sliz will hold forth on what’s happening and what might happen in Washington, D.C., where Congress may yet pose legislative challenges for electric utilities nationwide.

TVPPA members will then get a take from “The Other Side of the Fence” – former TVA executive Terry Boston, now president/CEO at Norristown, PA-based PJM Interconnection, will talk about what’s ahead for his and other utility companies outside the TVA footprint.

TVA Group President Kim Greene will close out the conference’s first day with a discussion of how the federal utility is preparing for change.

The conference’s final day will start with a panel discussion led by TVPPA Technology Applications Director Doug Peters on what TVPPA-member utilities are doing to get ready for the changing times ahead.

TVPPA Training Administration Manager Danette Scudder and Business Development Manager Jim Wyche will offer a presentation titled “Investing in Your Workforce to Create a Smarter Utility,” after which TVA President/CEO Tom Kilgore will close the conference with his thoughts on the federal utility’s “Highlights and Hard Spots” of the past 12 months.

Attendees will also hear from keynote speaker Doug Keeley, CEO of The Mark of a Leader; “Championship Coach” Brian Biro and author Murray Silver, a Savannah native.

There will also be the standbys of any TVPPA Annual Conference – the golf tournament, to be played this year at The Club at Savannah Harbor, home of the PGA Champions Tour’s Legends of Golf event; and the Richard C. Crawford Distinguished Service Award dinner.

It’s not too early to sign up for the Annual Conference, but be advised – registering for the conference and securing hotel space are two separate transactions. Fortunately, you can take care of both, quickly and easily, at www.tvppa.com.

Potential attendees may also secure space at the Marriott Riverfront by calling 1.800.285.0398. Those who choose to use the online form for hotel reservations will find that the TVPPA group code will fill in automatically, though you must enter your specific check-in and check-out dates.

Potential attendees should also note that the Marriott Riverfront requires a one-night, non-refundable deposit with each reservation. TVPPA requested this of the hotel in an effort to encourage attendees to be as specific as possible in determining actual lodging needs prior to making reservations. The American Public Power Association (APPA) also uses that policy.

“This should allow more attendees to stay at the host hotel,” said TVPPA Conference Coordinator Anne Coffelt. “When people overbook rooms, it takes rooms out of the block. Then, when extra rooms get canceled, our members who’d been on the waiting list can wind up paying a higher rate.

“When everyone books just the rooms they need,” Coffelt said, “it’s a win/win for everybody.”

TVA Purchases Power From Iowa Wind Farm
TVA is adding more wind energy to its generating system with a contract for the purchase of up to 115 megawatts of renewable energy from a wind farm in Iowa.

The 20-year agreement with Horizon Wind Energy LLC will supply wind from the Pioneer Prairie wind farm in Howard and Mitchell counties in Iowa. The energy will come from 70 existing Vesta 1.65-megawatt wind turbines. Generation is expected to begin this fall, subject to applicable environmental requirements and firm transmission arrangements being secured. ”With this contract, TVA has added up to 1,380 megawatts of new renewable or clean energy resources to the generating system. The contracts are a result of a request for proposals TVA issued in December 2008,” said TVA Senior Vice President John Trawick.

TVA’s current renewable energy portfolio, excluding recent wind contracts, includes 3,889 megawatts from hydro, wind, solar and methane sources. In addition, TVA’s nuclear plants contribute 6,900 megawatts of low-or-no-emission electricity to the power grid.

TVPPA’s Buddy Stansberry Retires
TVPPA Technical Services Director Clyde “Buddy” Stansberry has announced his retirement.

Buddy’s six-plus years at TVPPA capped a career of more than three decades in public power. He spent the bulk of that time working in TVA power supply planning and operations, but also spent time with New England ISO and as a consultant in Europe.

And his plans for the near future? “Rest up a bit, do some traveling with (wife) Linda and enjoy the children and grandchildren,” he said.

TVPPA President/CEO Jack Simmons said Buddy’s absence will be felt throughout TVPPA.

“Most of all,” Simmons said, “we will miss his kind words, encouraging attitude, attention to detail, ability to look at both sides of an issue – and his never-ending appetite for Cracker Barrel.”

TVA Scholarship
TVA is scheduled to announce April 9 the names of this year’s TVA Power Distributors Scholarship winners.

As in past years, TVA will award $4,000 scholarships to each of 30 dependents of TVPPA-member staffers. The awards dinner is scheduled for May 13 at a venue yet to be determined.

The TVA Power Distributors Scholarship Fund has awarded 300-plus scholarships worth more than $1 million during the last 15 years.

They're Here!
TVPPA’s 2010 Membership Directory and Buyer's Guide is on its way to your office – but if you want extra copies, there are more where those came from.

Regular, affiliate and associate members are set to receive complimentary copies but may buy more. The 2010 Buyer’s Guide, which includes vendor information, is also available.

For more information or to buy an extra Directory or Buyer’s Guide, contact Dotti Hamilton at 423.756.6511 ext. 211 or via e-mail at dhamilton@tvppa.com.

Supportive Resolution
“Attaboys” are always nice, and TVPPA recently got one from the Association of Tennessee Valley Governments (ATVG).

At its Jan. 26-27 Winter Meeting in Nashville, TN, ATVG approved a resolution “in support of the Tennessee Valley Public Power Association position on pending climate-change legislation.”

In its resolution, the ATVG asks Congress to use caution in adopting any program or regulation of combustion byproducts that will make power more expensive for consumers, carefully evaluate the impacts of a carbon tax and a cap-and-trade program, and ensure that revenues created by a cap-and-trade auction or direct tax be used only for targeted research and development of carbon capture and sequestration or other clean technologies.

FCA Headed Up In March
TVA has announced that, for billing periods beginning March 1, 2010, the Fuel Cost Adjustment (FCA) will continue to be a credit but will change from the current credit of 0.861 cents per kilowatt-hour to a credit of 0.552 cents per kilowatt- hour. The net result will be an increase of about 5.3% in the average firm wholesale rate from February.

This is the first increase in the FCA since October 2008.

Compared to February, the March FCA amount will increase residential monthly bills between $2.50 and $5.50, depending on usage levels.

Colder than normal weather in January increased sales and TVA fuel costs, which reduced the amount of credit consumers will see compared to previous months.

For the period between March 2010 and March 2011, total FCA rates are expected to increase as the deferred account credit that remained after the transition to a monthly FCA is returned to customers and as the total fuel cost increases in the summer peak period.

All-Member Meet Wins Raves
In almost 20 years as CEO at North Georgia EMC, Dalton, GA, Ron Hutchins has surely been in every sort of meeting – from really good to just OK to utter time-waster.

So how did TVPPA’s Feb. 3 All-Member meeting rate?

“I think it was invaluable,” he said.

Other TVPPA-member executives voiced similar sentiments. Dana Jeanes, controller at Memphis, TN, LG & W, said the meeting was “really good” from the standpoint of staying in touch.

“We’re involved, but we miss some stuff,” he said, “and not everyone can make Annual Conference every year, but we can take a day to do this – and it’s always good to hear Tom (Kilgore, TVA’s president/CEO) on the big picture.”

Greg Grissom, the manager/president/CEO at Hickman-Fulton Counties RECC, Hickman, KY, said the meeting reminded him of a cooperative annual meeting.

“I like this format,” he said. “You bring everybody together once a year for an update – and the time of year is good.”

‘Extremely Useful Forum’
TVA was represented at the meeting by Kilgore, Group President Kim Greene and Executive Vice President Ken Breeden. TVPPA President/CEO Jack Simmons gave those executives full marks for spending a chunk of the day fielding occasionally pointed comments and questions.

“This was an extremely useful forum for our members to interface with their TVPPA leadership as well as their fellow managers and TVA leadership,” Simmons said.

The meeting was called to order by TVPPA Vice Chairman Decosta Jenkins. The president/CEO at Nashville, TN, ES was subbing for TVPPA Chairman George Kitchens, general manager at Joe Wheeler EMC, Trinity, AL, who was unable to attend.

After welcoming attendees to Nashville, Jenkins offered an offhand take of the meeting’s mission.

“There are three types of people,” he said. “There are those who make it happen, those who watch it happen, and those who say, ‘what happened?’

“What we’re going to try to do today is get as many of you as we can from that third group into that first group,” Jenkins said.

‘Price Signals Aren’t New’
TVPPA President Simmons made the meeting’s first presentation, a quick sketch of the work done by TVPPA’s committees in 2009.

“TVPPA is not just staff,” Simmons said. “The committee structure is the backbone of TVPPA.”

Wes Kelley, president/CEO at PES Energize, Pulaski, TN, since mid-2009, said the committee overview would be helpful to any new TVPPA-member manager.

“There’s tremendous breadth and depth to the work TVPPA does,” Kelley said. “As a new manager, you feel a responsibility to get involved – you don’t want to be one of those ‘what happened?’ people Decosta talked about.”

TVA’s Greene then stepped up. She said upkeep for an aging fleet, modernization, Smart Grid and responsibility to retirees means TVA is facing the prospect of having to make “huge” capital investments.

She said TOU rates are needed because customers must recognize that serving additional power needs during peak hours is a very costly proposition.

“Price signals aren’t new,” she said. “I can save money by going to see a movie at 5 p.m. rather than 7 p.m. I can book a trip six weeks early and save money.

“I don’t gripe about it – I do it because it saves. We owe it to our customers to give them that information and let them make that choice,” Greene said.

Quid Pro Quo
Greene’s comments on TOU rates didn’t win unanimous praise. Scottsboro, AL, EPB Manager Jimmy Sandlin took Greene to task for what he called TVA’s rush toward time-of-use (TOU) rates.

Greene also drew a bit of heat from Cleveland, TN, Utilities General Manager Tom Wheeler, who took exception to the implication that inefficiency might be the main reason Alabama and Tennessee rank as the nation’s top two electricity-using states.

“We got to that point on purpose,” said Wheeler, citing TVA’s buy-all-you-want approach of days gone by. “I would ask that you think about (making that point) another way.”

Greene said her intent was to suggest that “people looking to incorporate energy-efficiency programs might look at those areas more than others,” not to criticize residents of those states.

Shifting gears, she said the issue of TVA needing a higher debt ceiling comes down to the need for new generation.

“It’s not about trying to spend a bunch of money we shouldn’t be spending,” she said. “It’s about responsibly running an electric business.”

Jim Allison, president/CEO at Duck River EMC, Shelbyville,TN, drew praise from several of his colleagues when he responded that TVPPA members should support TVA on the debt issue only if a very specific quid pro quo is in place first.

‘Changes In Accountability’
“My feeling is that if you expect distributors to support (a higher) debt ceiling, we have to have back some major changes in accountability,” he said. “There has to be some connection between those assets and the people who paid for them – us.”

Greene said Allison was espousing a remedy that would require reopening the TVA Act.

“What you’re talking about is changing the existing model,” she said, “and that deserves lots of discussion.”

Ed Medford of Knoxville, TN, UB, said Allison wasn’t speaking strictly on his own behalf.

“Those feelings – about TVA’s debt, whether all distributors want TOU rates, what Tom Wheeler said – are shared by many more of us,” said Medford, KUB’s Information Technology manager.

“I hope (TVA) was listening,” he said.

‘Speed To Market’
TVA Executive Vice President Ken Breeden started the meeting’s afternoon session by outlining how the federal utility plans to fund Smart Grid demonstration projects in the Valley.

“What we want are projects that can point to a targeted amount of demand response,” he said. “Our approach is that demand response is worth ‘x’ amount.”

He said that amount would be up to $500 for every kilowatt TVPPA members can take off peak, but only those utilities that are “well down the road with their thinking” are likely to be able to bid successfully.

“If you bid $400 (per kW), you’re going to be better than your neighbor at $500, but if you haven’t started anything yet, speed to market will probably get you,” he said.

Breeden said projects must also provide at least 1,500 kW of controllable load by no later than June 1, 2012, and controllable load for no less than 100 hours per year for at least 10 years.

TVA was to have sent out a request for information in mid-February, responses to which are due by March 5. TVA will issue requests for proposals (RFPs) to selected RFI respondents by March 12, with those utilities having until May 14 to reply.

TVA plans to announce awards on June 11 and is eyeing the prospect of having controllable load by July 9.

‘Arguments Among Friends’
TVA’s Kilgore was the meeting’s final individual presenter and began by taking license with an old saying – it’s the benefit, not the devil, in the details, he said.

Then he offered a homespun take on truth.

“Truth,” he said, “is discovered by arguments among friends.”

Kilgore said President Obama’s four nominees for the TVA Board of Directors – attorney Neil Mc Bride, Dr. Marilyn Brown, Dr. Barbara Haskew and former TVA Chairman Bill Sansom – were scheduled for mid-February confirmation hearings in the U.S. Senate.

“It should take no more than a few weeks before we have a full complement of directors,” Kilgore said, “but right before our directors go up (before the Senate), the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) nominees go up – and that’s very important to us.”

Kilgore said the economy has “put a damper” on federal energy legislation, but was quick to add that one would be well-advised not to take too much comfort in that.

“It hasn’t stopped,” he said. “Something needs to move there because I’m not real thrilled about having carbon regulated by (the federal Environmental Protection Agency).

“I’d choose legislation,” he said, “because that gives us a chance to have an argument among friends.”

Kilgore closed by saying he’s “bullish on our future.”

“Here’s why – almost everybody who’s better than us on rates is higher in carbon intensity,” he said, and the diversity of TVA’s portfolio will “put us in better shape than our neighbors.”

TVA Sets Rate-Spreadsheet Workshops
TVPPA members are in the process of preparing for the demand-based rates TVA plans to implement this year.

TVA has conducted and is conducting Valleywide workshops designed to help TVPPA-member managers and staff determine retail rates when the new wholesale rate structure goes into effect.

The principal tool in play is a spreadsheet, one of which TVA has prepared for each TVPPA-member utility, that outlines how a distributor’s retail rates might look.

“Understanding the spreadsheet is the biggest driver, and there’s a lot to be learned about this particular spreadsheet model,” said TVPPA Pricing Manager Jim Sheffield.

At press time, TVA had conducted spreadsheet workshops in TVPPA’s Western and Central districts and had others scheduled in the Mississippi (Feb. 9 in Starkville), Alabama (Feb. 10 in Decatur), Kentucky (Feb. 12 in Hopkinsville), Southeastern (Feb. 17 in Niota) and Appalachian (Feb. 26, 10 a.m., Appalachian EC, New Market, TN) districts.

Sheffield attended the Central District workshop and reported that TVPPA-member reaction was “universally positive.” Jim Allison, president/CEO at Duck River EMC, Shelbyville, TN, echoed that sentiment.

“I got a lot out of it,” Allison said. “The workshop helped us understand the mechanics of the spreadsheet, the policy issues involved and the timetable we have to make decisions.”

TVPPA Board OKs Deposit Program
Meeting Jan. 19 via Webinar, TVPPA’s Board of Directors unanimously approved a change in the Enhanced Security Deposit Program (ESDP) on which TVPPA’s Economic Development Committee had worked with TVA.

TVA launched the ESDP in 2002. The federal utility covered security deposits that commercial and industrial customers using at least 50kW would have paid to TVPPA-member distributors. TVA also protected itself with insurance through Coface.

TVA claimed last year, though, that the program’s cost had grown to the point at which it would soon be unsustainable. TVA officials said in June that they would work with TVPPA’s Economic Development Committee and Chairman Greg Fay, general manager at Clinton, TN, UB, to find a solution.

“We’re looking for a win-win solution, and that’s where we’re going to wind up,” Fay said at the time.

That solution calls for shifting part of ESDP costs from TVA to the TVPPA-member distributor or end-use customer – TVA will now bear 80 percent of the cost, with the distributor either absorbing the other 20 percent or passing it on to the end-use customer.

A customer signing up for ESDP can now take up to five years to repay a security deposit – including the option to pay nothing in the first year and spreading the payment over the next four.

Record High Demand
Weekly demand for TVA power reached new record highs for the seven-day period ending Jan. 10, 2010.

Total weekly energy use across the Tennessee Valley region was recorded at 4,633 gigawatt-hours. That’s more than 200 gigawatt-hours higher than the previous record set Aug. 12, 2007.
A new TVA record was set for total energy use in a 24-hour period on Friday, Jan. 8, at 701 gigawatt-hours.

The highest weekend daily record was set on Saturday, Jan. 9, at 673 gigawatt-hours. That was also the third-highest daily usage on record. A record for Sunday usage was set on Jan. 10, at 644 gigawatt-hours.

More TVA Faces
TVPPA members will be seeing a few more different TVA faces in different places as a result of the federal utility’s ongoing reorganization.

TVA President/CEO Tom Kilgore announced at TVPPA’s Feb. 3 All-Member meeting that veterans Ron Owens and Bob Morris will be switching jobs – Morris will take over as vice president for Customer Service, while Owens will step into Morris’ former role as vice president for Valley Relations.

Gary Harris, who’d overseen TVA customer service for West Tennessee, will become the federal utility’s vice president for Industrial Marketing.