Generating from the farm

Generating from the farm

TVA brings renewable-energy project using wind, sun to Miss. home

By Tom Charlier
Contact
November 8, 2004

THRASHER, Miss. -- Just off the narrow asphalt of County Road 1001, on a patch of grass between Willie Hatfield's home and the shed where he shells peas, the newest generating facility in the Tennessee Valley Authority system cranks out power for the regional electrical grid.

It's hardly a major operation, generating barely one-tenth the power needed for a typical home. But the intense sun and strong breezes that often burnish the flat, open land encompassing Hatfield's 53-acre tract activate the solar panels and wind turbine that help turn on lights hundreds of miles away.

Willie Hatfield sitting near solar panel and wind turbine
By Dave Darnell
Willie Hatfield, 70, sits in a swing near a large solar panel behind his home near Thrasher, Miss. In left background is a wind turbine.

Small as it is, the operation is a model of the kind of renewable-energy facility that TVA wants to proliferate.

"We'd like to see this expand across the entire valley," said Gary Harris, who manages TVA's Green Power Switch program.

The hybrid solar and wind power system is part of a demonstration project in which TVA buys -- at a premium price -- the renewable energy generated by wind turbines, solar panels and related technologies owned by private residents and small businesses.

The electricity produced through the facilities is made available to subscribers to the green power program, whose name reflects the non polluting nature of renewable energy. They pay an extra $4 for each 150-kilowatt-hour block of power -- which amounts to about 12 percent of an average household's usage -- they purchase.

Even groups that are usually critical of TVA applaud the green power program.

"It gives an opportunity to TVA customers who want to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem," said Stephen A. Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

TVA has been gradually expanding the green power program in recent years by signing up more and more local distributors. By next spring, it will be available to customers of the Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division and other utilities across West Tennessee.

Most of TVA's green power comes from wind turbines atop Buffalo Mountain in East Tennessee and solar photovoltaic panels scattered across the region.

But because of the popularity of the program, the agency lately has not been able to produce enough green power to meet demand. That's one reason it is pursuing "partners," such as Hatfield, to generate electricity.

"It provides us a low-cost way of acquiring green power," Harris said.

TVA offers a number of incentives for its generating partners, including $500 to help with startup and equipment costs. The agency also pays generators 15 cents per kilowatt-hour for their power -- roughly three times what it charges for wholesale electricity.

Hatfield, 70, had additional help at his home, which is the first in the TVA region using a hybrid solar-wind system to generate power for the grid.

His system, which cost roughly $20,000, was funded by the Mississippi Land, Water and Timber Resource Board as part of a state initiative to encourage commercial development of renewable power.

Living with his wife on a last vestige of what once was an 1,100-acre family farm about 80 miles southeast of Memphis, Hatfield receives a credit toward his power bill for the amount of electricity he sells to TVA. The credits, coupled with other measures, have reduced his monthly bills from the Prentiss County Electric Power Association from a little below $100 to just above $60, he said. "I wanted help on my utility bill in my older years, now that I'm on a fixed income," Hatfield said.

On a recent fall morning, Hatfield showed the equipment that generates and transfers the power and the meter registering the 255-kilowatt-hours he's produced for the grid in the past six weeks or so.

With the winds calm, the turbine was still. A 6-mph breeze is needed to generate power, he said, while a 15-mph wind will make the turbine "really produce."

-- Tom Charlier: 529-2572