Green Power program growth 'pleasant surprise': TVA looking to expand its renewable energy sources

Green Power program growth 'pleasant surprise'
TVA looking to expand its renewable energy sources
By The Associated Press

OLIVER SPRINGS – A dense fog roiling with driving rain and nearly gale-force winds settles onto East Tennessee's Buffalo Mountain.

It's the weather that Gary H. Harris relishes.
"This is a great day," he proclaims. "People would say it's bad, but I love it."

The gusts, reaching 30 mph at times, turn 75-foot turbine blades atop towers reaching 30 stories, making a whoosh-whoosh-whoosh noise that is barely audible over the wind.

It is one of a growing number of ways the Tennessee Valley Authority is generating cleaner, renewable energy across its seven-state region.

The Green Power Switch program, launched in 2000, is gaining popularity at a rate so unexpected TVA already is looking to expand. Customers agree to pay somewhat higher prices to buy fixed amounts of power generated by renewable sources under the program.

"We've been pleasantly surprised," said Harris, Green Power program manager.

The high demand is especially surprising since TVA's biggest customer, Memphis Light, Gas & Water Division, isn't offering the option yet. LG&W will join the program next fall after developing a new customer information system with more billing options.

For now, 12 distributors in Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama and Mississippi are participating in the TVA program.

Since it is more costly to generate energy from renewable sources than from conventional sources, such as coal, subscribers to the Green Power program pay an extra $4 for each block of 150 kilowatt-hours they agree to buy. A 150-kilowatt block represents about 12 percent of an average household's monthly use.

Throughout the TVA region, Green Power subscribers have purchased an average of 1.7 blocks, meaning they are spending $7 more each month. TVA also is using solar power and methane gas from landfills and sewage lagoons to generate power. But the federal agency has been most successful with wind power. Since October 2000, the completed 1.7-megawatt, 23,000-megawatt capacity of the TVA's Green Power program generates 5 megawatts of electricity – a tiny fraction of the agency's system. Officials hope to increase Green Power production to 50 megawatts in the next 10 years.

The program's high demand has prompted TVA to solicit proposals to include a plan to build a 20-megawatt wind farm at Stone Mountain, near Mountain City, C. Blittersdorf, president of the American Wind Energy Association, said TVA is joining the federal government's commitment to wind power. "We're pleased," said Stephen A. Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, a group often critical of TVA, said the federal agency's commitment to wind power has prompted other producers and utilities in the region to explore the option. "Nobody really knew how this part of the country could perform in this part of the country," he said. "The industry really is getting some legs under it and taking off." He said the fact that TVA is getting wind turbines in Buffalo Mountain, Tennessee, is a "pleasant surprise." TVA officials say they have been successful with wind turbines on Buffalo Mountain, 6 million kilowatt-hours each year, enough to serve about 400 homes, interfere with television or radio reception, or kill large numbers of birds.