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Tennessee power crews prepare for winter storm
AccuWeather
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1/9/2025
Power companies and crews in Tennessee are bracing for the looming winter storm that is expected to not only bring snow and ice, but also cause power outages in the state.
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00:00
The Mid-South is bracing for the biggest ice and snow event so far this season.
00:04
Power companies are preparing as well. The TVA, the Tennessee Valley Authority,
00:09
they provide energy to more than 150 local power companies across Tennessee and six other states.
00:16
Greg Henrich, he's the VP of Transmission Operations for the TVA. All right, Greg,
00:20
thanks so much for joining us. We have a couple questions for you. Number one,
00:23
what challenges does this upcoming winter storm have on that power delivery?
00:27
Yeah, yeah, welcome. Thank you for having me on here, Damian. And again, as I was telling you
00:33
maybe ahead of this, that, you know, it's an interesting transition that we're in right now
00:37
because we're just now seeing winter storm Blair exit the Tennessee Valley Service Territory,
00:43
and that brought us some cooler temperatures than normal. We saw a peak of the week this morning,
00:48
but handled it well with some reserves in our generation and delivered the energy consumption
00:54
just fine. And looking forward now, we see that winter storm Cora entering the Service Territory
01:00
this evening, heading in across the weekend. You know, as much as Texas probably isn't used
01:05
to snow, we also aren't used to this much significant amount of snow. This storm looks
01:11
to dump wintry precipitation across about 90% of the Tennessee Valley, which is a bit unusual for
01:17
us. We're preparing well. Most of it's going to come in dry, powdery snow in the northern part
01:23
of Tennessee, maybe, you know, up to six to eight inches there, one to three inches lower in the
01:29
Tennessee Valley. And then ultimately what we're really watching is that potential for icing and
01:34
freezing rain in the North Alabama, North Mississippi, and North Georgia areas. And, you know,
01:39
what causes the problems there is once the ice accumulates on the power lines or on the trees,
01:44
that's when you can see down trees into power lines, down power lines, down power poles, which
01:49
is both not only dangerous for the public, but it also results in those power outages that we
01:55
learn to anticipate heading into a storm like this. All right, Greg. So how has the TVA and
02:00
your crews been preparing for the, not only the higher power usage, but also the potential for
02:05
power outages? Yeah, again, we're used to this type of work. So we know to go ahead and stage
02:12
crews and equipment strategically across the territory where we see the highest risk or
02:17
highest threat of some of these power outages. And again, that for us is in the lower part of
02:22
our service territory. We also have to, as you can see on the screen with the plants, we have some
02:27
exposed equipment to the elements. We have to make sure that equipment is protected, insulated.
02:34
We have enclosures built around it. So it's protected from both the wind and the rain so
02:37
that they don't have any freezing instrumentation or control systems that cause issues at the plants.
02:43
And then finally, from an energy consumption standpoint, we actually do a 10-day hourly
02:49
weather forecast that then we highly, it's highly correlated to the energy consumption. And we build
02:55
that 10-day plan. And as you all well know in the industry, every day closer that you get,
03:00
we get a little bit more certainty around that forecast and ultimately build the plan to execute,
03:05
to deliver the power to the 10 million people of the Tennessee Valley. All right, Greg, speaking
03:10
of those 10 million people that you were talking about, what advice would you give to them to stay
03:15
safe during this upcoming storm? Yeah, you know, it's really probably prudent to pay attention to
03:22
the National Weather Service, your local weather, because it's unique to each individual area and
03:27
region. Just pay attention to what are the temperatures and wind chills, what are the
03:31
conditions, what are the road conditions anticipated to be, you know, stay off the roads,
03:35
if at all possible. And then lastly, if you are out in the roads, make sure that you've got,
03:39
you know, a warm set of clothes, some boots and some blankets in the car in case you get into a
03:44
traffic jam or a breakdown. So, you know, some of the standard protocols, but really just paying
03:48
attention to the conditions local in your area. All right, Greg Henders, VP of Transmissions
03:53
Operations for the TVA, joining us from Chattanooga, Tennessee, the local. Thank you so much
03:58
for joining us, Greg.
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