A clean, green surprise

A clean, green surprise

The Tennessee Valley Authority's Green Power Switch program demonstrates that people are willing to pay more for clean electric power. The program, launched in 2000, is gaining popularity so rapidly the utility is already looking to expand.

It gives TVA customers across parts of the utility's seven-state service area the option of paying a higher price to buy a fixed amount of power generated by clean, renewable sources.

"We've been pleasantly surprised," said Gary H. Harris, TVA's Green Power program manager. There's been a high demand even though TVA's biggest customer, Memphis Light, Gas & Water Division, isn't offering the option yet. It plans to join the program next fall. For now, 12 distributors in Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama and Mississippi are participating. Subscribers to the Green Power program pay an extra $4 for each block of 150 kilowatt-hours they agree to buy.

That's because it's more expensive to generate energy from renewable sources than from convention sources, such as coal.

A 150-kilowatt block represents about 12 percent of an average household's monthly use. Green Power subscribers have purchased an average of 1.7 blocks, meaning they are spending $7 more each month.

TVA is using wind, solar and methane gas from landfills and sewage lagoons to generate the power, but has been most successful with wind power. Turbines on Buffalo Mountain, completed in October 2000, generate 6 million kilowatt-hours a year, enough to serve about 400 homes.

TVA is now soliciting proposals, including a plan to build a 20-megawatt wind "farm" on Stone Mountain in northeast Tennessee. According to David C. Blittersdorf, president of the American Wind Energy Association, energy production based on wind nearly doubled in the U.S. last year.

At this point TVA's Green Power program generates only a small fraction of the utility's total power generation — 5 megawatts out of a 29,000-megawatt capacity — though agency officials hope to increase Green Power production to 30 megawatts in the next 10 years.

But TVA's success has prompted other producers and utilities in the region to explore the option.

"Nobody really knew how wind would perform in this part of the country," said Stephen A. Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

TVA comes in for its share of well-deserved criticism around these parts because its coal-fired plants are a major source of the air pollution that blankets WNC.

But this is an instance where the federal agency deserves a hand for taking the lead in a new and promising direction for power generation.

It has demonstrated both that wind power can work here and that people recognize the need to take personal responsibility for helping to clean up the air — even if it costs them more.