Misleading solar information from TVA

The Sunday 18 April Tullahoma News reported that Jack Daniels will soon join other Tennessee institutions/business customers who generate solar energy through photovoltaics (PV). I applaud their initiative. Nevertheless, the article about Jack Daniels also states that "TVA's green energy leadership as the energy provider with the greatest amount of renewable generation in the Southeast." That probably includes hydroelectric, which is technically renewable, but the article is about PV. The article states that TVA's "Green Invest has attracted nearly $2.7 billion in solar investment and procured over 2,100 megawatts of solar on behalf of its customers." Procured? From whom? This is double-speak.

The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE), the renewable energy watchdog for the Southeastern U.S. reports in its "Solar in the Southeast" Annual Report (dated 2020.6.23 for 2019 data) that TVA is a "Sunblocker" (vs. a SunRiser) who has been promoting "misleading claims, the actual plan for solar in the Tennessee Valley significantly trails the other comparably-sized utility systems in the region." Of the 14 generation companies SACE tracks in the southeast, only 4 generators are worse than TVA for 2019 data. The report also states that based on 2023 forecast for the southeast renewable energy generation, only 3 generators will be worse than TVA. What's worse is that Tennessee is sixth out of seven southeast states monitored in PV generation capacity in 2019 with 313 MW (megawatt) whereas North Caroline is 1st with 3,541 MW. And even worse than that is that Tennessee is projected to be last of all those states come 2023.

Folks, TVA is putting out biased and misleading information to try and make itself look green (sounds political: just make any statement you want; color a truth to meet your needs). Tennessee will not allow net metering because of TVA pressure. Net metering is a mechanism whereby the residential customer gets to sell excess solar generation back to their utility for a credit by making the customer's electric meter run backwards. This top down, take it or leave it mentality from TVA concerning alternative energy system generation has gone on for too long, and is putting Tennessee way behind other southern states in PV generation. Tennesseans deserve the same that other states "allow" their customers to have, and not just what TVA "allows" their distributors to do for Tennessee residential customers. Remember, TVA is the liberal democratic system that wonderfully electrified the southeast U.S. back in the great depression days, bringing the southeast out of its non-electrified state with low economic capability and closer to the standard of other electrified areas of the U.S. at that time, which promoted great economic expansion during a very dark time of our history. Unfortunately, TVA has stagnated over the years and is now the poster child for quasi-governmental interference in customer relations for alternative energy.

My family was part of the TVA Green Power Switch program for many years. Monthly, we paid extra money per a 400Kw block of energy (we purchased two blocks from TUA all those years) to help TVA promote green power for the Tennessee Valley. A couple years ago, TVA dropped that program. We had hoped for the best, but since TVA took our money for all those years without allowing equal opportunities for residential solar power seen in other parts of the southeast U.S., we declined to continue the contribution through the new method of contribution (TUA's solar farm). Individual customers should let both TUA and TVA know their wishes in being able to obtain individual solar PV energy through the easiest possible mechanism, including possible tax credits and/or rebates, without big brother TVA jamming its green pablum down our throats.

Bob Bates

Tullahoma