Rainstorms help TVA generate more hydroelectricity

Chattanooga Times/Free Press, Tenn. --Sep. 17

Sep. 17--The high winds, rains and tornadoes spawned by Hurricane Ivan threatened to down some power lines in the Tennessee Valley, but the storm also is bringing the region plenty of its cheapest power source.

The Tennessee Valley Authority is operating all of its 29 hydroelectric power generating stations around the clock as preparation for and response to heavy rains in the region. As a result, the agency is generating twice as much hydroelectricity as normal this week, officials said.

"We expect about 80,000 megawatthours of production a day, which is nearly twice what we usually get from our hydro units each day," TVA spokesman Gil Francis said. "We've got a lot of water we're trying to move through our system, so we're running most of these units 24 hours a day rather than just at the peak demand periods."

Runoff from the rain into TVA's reservoirs supplies the federal utility with a no-cost "fuel" source for power generating units at 29 of its dams. TVA officials, who jokingly refer to rain as "hydro refilling," garnered about 12 percent of all electricity in the Tennessee Valley from hydro dams last year.

But while TVA may benefit from cheaper fuel from the rains, the storm could be costly for its power distributors, such as EPB of Chattanooga.

Hurricane Ivan is following a path similar to that of Hurricane Opal, which in 1995 downed 59 EPB poles and left more than 60,000 customers without electricity. Opal, the third worst storm ever for EPB, cost the city-owned utility about $1.4 million, EPB officials said.

"This storm is comparable with Opal, but we're hoping it is not as destructive," said Don Nanney, an EPB senior manager.

Mr. Nanney said EPB crews were staying on the job throughout the night Thursday to respond to potential outages.

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