TVA lags on energy efficiency, critics say

TVA lags on energy efficiency, critics say

Agency defends its record

By Jesse Tinsley
News-Sentinel staff writer

TVA disputes renewed claims by environmentalists that the agency's energy efficiency programs — designed in part to cut consumption and encourage better use of electricity — remain weak.

"TVA's current energy efficiency programs are anemic," said Steve Smith, executive director of the Tennessee Valley Energy Reform Coalition (TVERC). "These are not programs you would expect from an environmental leader."

TVERC, which tracks TVA's energy policies and is highly critical of the utility's nuclear program, says that TVA Chairman Craven Crowell has failed to concentrate on environmental leadership and energy conservation since he assumed the agency's top post 18 months ago.

"When Craven Crowell became TVA's chairman, he promised ratepayers environmentally sensitive energy programs that would promote the conservation of electricity," Smith said.

TVA officials disagree, claiming the environmentalists are impatient for progress and their charges are partially rooted in animosity toward the agency's nuclear program.

"TVA initiated and carried off the nation's largest energy conservation program," said TVA spokesman Gil Francis. "We conducted over 1 million home surveys and financed weatherizations on thousands of homes, from storm windows to caulking."

He said current programs are in place and evolving and are taken seriously by TVA.

"Our program is very thorough, analytical, and it is not over," Francis said.

TVA's energy-efficiency program encompasses a number of projects, such as promoting the use of electric heat pumps for heating and cooling as well as incentives to builders who construct all-electric homes.

Heat pumps are efficient because they make use of residual heat collected from the air or from ground water. The most economical is the ground-source heat pump which collects heat from ground water pumped from a well.

Because the temperature of ground water averages 58 degrees year-round, a ground-source heat pump requires less electricty to heat during the winter and to cool during the summer.

But TVERC claims heat pumps in many cases are over-rated and less energy-efficient than natural gas heaters.

"Heat pumps also lose their efficiency in below-freezing temperatures. Heat pumps may actually drive up peak demand in the winter during very cold days as heap pumps switch to the less efficient mode," Smith said.