Tennessee Valley Authority braces for winter weather

AccuWeather

With snow and ice on the way for much of the South, here's how the TVA is preparing for potential power outages.

Transcript

00:00The Mid-South is bracing for the biggest ice and snow event so far this season.

00:04Power companies are preparing as well. The TVA, the Tennessee Valley Authority,

00:09they provide energy to more than 150 local power companies across Tennessee and six other states.

00:16Greg Henrich, he's the VP of Transmission Operations for the TVA.

00:20All right, Greg, thanks so much for joining us. We have a couple questions for you. Number one,

00:23what challenges does this upcoming winter storm have on that power delivery?

00:28Yeah, yeah, welcome. Thank you for having me on here, Damian. And again, as I was telling you

00:32maybe ahead of this, that, you know, it's an interesting transition that we're in right now

00:36because we're just now seeing winter storm Blair exit the Tennessee Valley Service Territory,

00:42and that brought us some cooler temperatures than normal. We saw a peak of the week this morning,

00:46but handled it well with some reserves in our generation and delivered the energy consumption

00:54just fine. And looking forward now, we see that winter storm Cora entering the Service Territory

01:00this evening, heading in across the weekend. You know, as much as Texas probably isn't used to

01:05snow, we also aren't used to this much significant amount of snow. This storm looks to dump wintry

01:12precipitation across about 90% of the Tennessee Valley, which is a bit unusual for us. We're

01:18preparing well. Most of it's going to come in dry, powdery snow in the northern part of Tennessee,

01:24maybe, you know, up to six to eight inches there, one to three inches lower in the Tennessee Valley.

01:30And then ultimately what we're really watching is that potential for icing and freezing rain

01:35in the North Alabama, North Mississippi, and North Georgia areas. And you know, what causes

01:40the problems there is once the ice accumulates on the power lines or on the trees, that's when

01:45you can see down trees into power lines, down power lines, down power poles, which is both not

01:50only dangerous for the public, but it also results in those power outages that we learn to anticipate

01:56heading into a storm like this. All right, Greg, so how has the TVA and your crews been preparing

02:01for not only the higher power usage, but also the potential for power outages?

02:08Yeah, again, we're used to this type of work, so we know to go ahead and stage

02:12crews and equipment strategically across the territory where we see the highest risk or highest

02:17threat of some of these power outages. And again, that for us is in the lower part of our service

02:23territory. We also have to, as you can see on the screen with the plants, we have some exposed

02:28equipment to the elements. We have to make sure that equipment is protected, insulated. We have

02:34enclosures built around it so it's protected from both the wind and the rain so that they don't have

02:38any freezing instrumentation or control systems that cause issues at the plants. And then finally,

02:44is from an energy consumption standpoint, we actually do a 10-day hourly weather forecast

02:51that then we highly, it's highly correlated to the energy consumption. Then we build that 10-day

02:56plan and as you all well know in the industry, every day closer that you get, we get a little

03:01bit more certainty around that forecast and ultimately build the plan to execute to deliver

03:06the power to the 10 million people of the Tennessee Valley. All right, Greg, speaking of those 10

03:11million people that you were talking about, what advice would you give to them to stay safe during

03:16this upcoming storm? Yeah, you know, it's really probably prudent to pay attention to the National

03:23Weather Service or local weather because it's unique to each individual area and region. Just

03:27pay attention to what are the temperatures and wind chills, what are the conditions, what are

03:32the road conditions anticipated to be, you know, stay off the roads if at all possible.

03:36And then lastly, if you are out in the roads, make sure that you've got, you know, a warm set of

03:40clothes, some boots and some blankets in the car in case you get into a traffic jam or a breakdown.

03:45So, you know, some of the standard protocols, but really just paying attention to the conditions

03:50local in your area. All right, Greg Henders, VP of Transmissions Operations for the TVA, joining us

03:55from Chattanooga, Tennessee, The Local. Thank you so much for joining us, Greg. Thank you, Damian.

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