KUB won't be in TVA's green-power experiment

KUB won't be in TVA's green-power experiment
Non-participation linked to billing

By Jerry Dean
News-Sentinel business writer

"Green power" - electricity from renewable resources - still may be offered to KUB customers in years to come as an option.

But KUB commissioners heard Thursday it won't come by next summer as green power advocates had hoped.

KUB was to have been part of a TVA pilot program as early as next spring, but KUB officials said patchwork billing systems preclude participation, at least in the developmental phase of the program.

Green power uses renewable sources - solar energy, wind or methane from sanitary landfills - to power generators. TVA would offer customers green-power pricing options by 2002, but KUB President Larry Fleming said Thursday no such TVA program is yet in place.

"KUB fully supports green power developed by TVA," Fleming said. "Cleaner power will benefit our region and customers. We expect to participate."

But if a pilot's too complex, he said, "it's unwise to use KUB resources to adapt our billing system."

Stephen Smith, who directs the Tennessee Valley Energy Reform Coalition, said KUB's decision not to participate in green power development coincides with KUB-TVA debate on how best to deal with electric industry deregulation. Green power, he said, "shouldn't be a casualty of KUB-TVA disagreements."

KUB Chairman Charles Sample said the decision to pull out of recent talks had nothing to do with any disagreement.

"KUB loves green power," Sample said.

The utility company plans to replace its billing system by 2002, Sample said, but the current system won't let KUB offer a green-power billing option.

Sample said there's "no problem" between TVA and KUB management.

"That's not a part of our decision," he told Smith, adding that KUB will offer green power once TVA has a program.

Fleming said KUB withdrew only from a development phase that initially would offer green power to 170,000 KUB customers and 530,000 elsewhere in TVA's service area.

Smith said green-power talks, attended by Mike Tucker of KUB, had progressed enough that KUB and eight other distributors could offer a pilot program next year. He said electric customers could opt to pay $4 more a month for a "block" of 200 or so kilowatt-hours of renewable energy. Studies show up to 5 percent of customers are willing to pay for clean energy alternatives, he said.

Smith said planners had hoped to include 170,000 KUB electric customers in a 700,000-customer test market. KUB's non-participation, he said, "skews" that plan.

Fleming said he would meet with Smith on the billing matter.

In other business, KUB:

• Approved a $50,000 KUB grant from its gas system economic development program to aid Ameristeel's $43 million plant modernization.
• Heard a report on KUB's July 1-9 transition to its own retirement system during which $320 million in assets were transferred from the city's retirement fund.

Jerry Dean may be reached at 423-521-8123 or dean@knews.com.