TVA considers expanding wind farm

Jan 14, 2003

TVA considers expanding wind farm

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - The Tennessee Valley Authority is considering a 15-fold increase in the generating capacity of its wind farm on Buffalo Mountain.

The country's largest public utility has been operating three wind turbines on Buffalo Mountain, a reclaimed strip mine in Anderson County about 25 miles west of Knoxville, since 2001.

Now, TVA is planning to add another 18 turbines, giving the wind farm a capacity of more than 28 megawatts _ up from 1.8 megawatts. That's enough to power a city of 16,000 people, about the size of Greeneville.

TVA directors were scheduled to receive a briefing on the wind power program during a board meeting Tuesday morning.

TVA officials last year said the agency was prepared to invest $25 million to $30 million to get more wind turbines on line by late 2003.

Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy watchdog group, praised the move.

"TVA has been a leader in the region with wind power. With this expansion, TVA continues to demonstrate that wind technologies are both feasible and desirable for the Southeast," Smith said.

Smith said that although the TVA project pales compared to large wind farms in the Pacific Northwest, California and Texas, "this is a significant commitment to wind in our region."

Nationally, wind power is the fastest growing electric power source _ more than gas turbines, coal plants or nuclear plants, he said. The Energy Department lists 4,558 megawatts of U.S. wind power.

Wind, solar collectors and reclaimed landfill gas power TVA's Green Power Switch alternative energy program. Some 6,000 homes and more than 300 businesses pay a few extra dollars per month to buy this renewable energy from TVA.

TVA looked hard at building a second wind farm on Stone Mountain near Mountain City in northeast Tennessee, close by the Virginia and North Carolina borders, instead of expanding Buffalo Mountain.

But the idea met resistance from some residents and North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper, who said the 375-foot turbines would destroy the "beauty and peacefulness" of the mountains and violate his state's Mountain Ridge Protection Act.

TVA met similar opposition from Chattanooga residents when the agency considered a site there before settling on Buffalo Mountain.

Smith said a continuing TVA study suggests the Buffalo Mountain turbines have had little impact on wildlife _ hurting bats more than birds, but neither in significant numbers.

TVA provides electricity to 158 distributors serving 8.3 million people in Tennessee and parts of Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi.