TVA Power Facts

TVA produced more than 150 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity and earned revenues of about $7 billion in fiscal year 2003, making it the largest public power provider in the nation.

TVA met a record demand for power of 29,866 megawatts (MW) and set an all-time 24-hour generation record of 584,278 MW-hours (MWh) on Jan. 24, 2003.

TVA accomplished this using its unique and flexible mix of fossil, hydro and nuclear power generation, as well as renewable energy sources and a strong, reliable transmission system.
During the peak, all but two of TVA's 59 coal-fired units and all but three of its 72 combustion turbine peaking units were generating power for the system.

The power system set a record when it met power demands in excess of 28,000 MW for five straight days in August 2003. Until then, there had been only four occasions in company history that the system load exceeded 28,000 MW for two consecutive days.

Fossil fuel plants produced about 60 percent of TVA's total generation in fiscal year 2003, including almost 1 percent from combustion turbines.

Nuclear power produced about 29 percent of TVA's generation, and hydro power produced 11 percent.

TVA's renewable energy program, Green Power Switch®, generated the remainder of the fiscal year 2003 power.

Fossil Power Highlights

Fossil generating units continued to set production records.

Eight units–three at Colbert, two at Widows Creek, two at Johnsonville and one at Gallatin–set all-time continuous run records.
John Sevier Fossil Plant set an operation record in April 2003 when the plant's four units operated continuously for 121 days.

TVA's Widows Creek Fossil Plant had exemplary performance, generating more than 10.2 million MWh of electricity–the most during a fiscal year in the plant's 50-year history.

Four of the plant's eight units had continuous runs in excess of 100 days and two set continuous run records.

For the second year in a row, Electric Light and Power Magazine ranked Bull Run Fossil Plant as the nation's most efficient coal-fired generating plant in calendar year 2002 - out of 572 plants across the country.

The magazine has ranked Bull Run among the nation's top ten most efficient plants every year since 1995.

TVA continues to install, on 25 of its fossil generating units, selective catalytic reduction (SCR) systems or similar technologies further reducing nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions.

Eight SCRs are operational at Allen, Cumberland, Paradise and Widows Creek fossil plants.
TVA will reduce emissions of NOx during the summer ozone season by about 75 percent by 2005, compared with mid-1990 levels.
NOx emissions have already been reduced by about 50 percent from mid-1990 levels.

TVA is adding scrubbers at several fossil fuel generation facilities that collectively will reduce emissions by more than 200,000 tons per year, resulting in an 85 percent overall reduction in sulfur dioxide emissions from the TVA fossil system since the late 1970s.

TVA plans to build five additional scrubbers to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions from the fossil system as part of continuing efforts to improve air quality.
Construction began on a scrubber at Paradise Fossil Plant's Unit 3.

General Electric presented Paradise Fossil Plant with a Return on Environmental Partnership award, recognizing the joint efforts by Paradise and GE to reduce the potential for water permit violations from the plant's ash pond.

Employees at Shawnee Fossil Plant celebrated the plant's 50th year in service. The first of the Kentucky plant's 10 generating units began operation in April 1953.

Nuclear Power Highlights

TVA's nuclear power plants are recognized by industry organizations for outstanding performance and are ranked among the most efficient plants in the country.

Nucleonics Week, an industry publication, ranked all three of TVA's nuclear power plants among the most efficient generators in the country for 2002 and over the past three years.
TVA was the only utility listed with three plants among the top 15 most efficient generators for 2002 and the three year period of 2000-2002.

TVA Nuclear received the Tennessee Quality Excellence Award for excellence in performance.

Tennessee presents the award to organizations that have demonstrated excellence through their practices and achievements, that are outstanding examples of quality organizations in the State of Tennessee, and that serve as "world class" role models.
Evaluation criteria for the award include leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, human resource focus, process management, and business results.

TVA Nuclear received the Nuclear Energy Institute's (NEI) Top Industry Practice (TIP) "Best of the Best" Award for the strategic planning programs and processes at its nuclear power plants.

TVA Nuclear also received an NEI TIP Configuration Management Process Award for permanent drywell shielding installed at Brown Ferry.

Sequoyah Unit 1 operated continuously from one refueling outage to the next, generating power for 478 consecutive days before shutting down the unit for a planned refueling outage on March 17.

This was the first "breaker-to-breaker" run for Sequoyah and the second for TVA's nuclear units.

TVA successfully installed four new steam generators for Sequoyah Unit 1 in June.

Sequoyah gained 4 MW and expects to save several million dollars each refueling and maintenance outage because of fewer required inspections.
Replacing the steam generators on Sequoyah Unit 1 provides benefit to TVA customers by extending the life of the unit, as well as increasing its generation.

Browns Ferry Unit 1 restart activities continued on schedule and within budget.

The Unit 1 team is ensuring the quality and safety of the work to restart the reactor in 2007 by using the same programs that have proven effective in the operation of TVA Nuclear units.

Hydropower Highlights

TVA's 29 hydropower plants and Raccoon Mountain Pumped-Storage Plant generated more hydropower in FY 2003 than in any year since FY 1997.

Together, these plants generated about 19.9 million megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity, including about 16.9 million MWh of conventional hydro production and 3 million MWh of pumped-storage production.
Pumping operations at Raccoon Mountain, scheduled during low-demand hours and when needed for base-load, consumed about 3.8 million MWh, resulting in a net hydro generation of 16.1 million MWh.
The increased hydro generation was due primarily to rainfall from significant spring storms, which was stored in tributary reservoirs and used very carefully throughout the summer to keep production costs low, meet near-record power demands, and provide much needed cooling water for fossil and nuclear plants.

TVA's hydro units played a crucial role in reducing power-system costs and ensuring overall reliability again in FY 2003. Because of their rapid response time, these units are scheduled and used for peaking power, when the value of power is typically the highest, and used for a number of ancillary services such as load following -- the process of adjusting generation to meet demand -- and for system stabilization.

TVA's Watts Bar, Hiwassee, Apalachia, Chatuge and Nottely hydro plants and 13 of the 21 generating units at Wilson Hydro Plant were automated in FY 2003.

A total of 18 hydro plants now can be controlled and monitored from TVA's Hydro Dispatch Control Cell in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
All of TVA's hydro plants will be automated in the future, significantly reducing operating costs and increasing generating efficiency.

TVA averted about $481 million in flood damages Valley-wide and about $19 million along the lower Ohio and Mississippi Rivers due to its integrated management of the Tennessee River system.

Hydro-modernization efforts continued to reduce costs, improve efficiency and boost generating output.

Improvements to Unit 4 at Fort Loudon, Unit 1 at Douglas, Unit 3 at Guntersville and Unit 3 at Watts Bar added another 24 MW of capacity to the TVA power system.
TVA's hydro-modernization program will have increased system capacity by more than 700 MW when it is completed around 2015.

TVA is conducting the Reservoir Operations Study, a comprehensive, two-year review of its policies for operating the Tennessee River system.

Significant scientific analyses were performed to assess how a number of alternative policies for operating the sysem would affect the system objectives, including flood risk and water quality.
Based on the results of the analyses and public comment on the study, TVA staff developed a preferred alternative.
The preferred alternative will be in the study's Final Environmental Impact Statement, which TVA expects to issue this winter. A record of decision by the TVA Board of Directors is expected in Spring 2004.

TVA's Clean Marina Initiative was one of four efforts highlighted nation-wide at the first National Clean Marina Conference.

TVA's initiative is designed to help clean up the waters of the Tennessee River system and is among many such initiatives to protect the waters boaters use across the nation.
Through TVA's and other initiatives, marinas are encouraged to support better fueling techniques, install and use pumpout systems for vessels' wastewater systems, and to provide clean boating education.

Green Power Highlights

TVA's Green Power Switch® received a "Top 10" ranking from the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory for the second year in a row. The ranking was based on customer participation rates.

Green Power Switch® generated green power from 15 solar sites, a wind park and a methane gas facility.

Approximately 7,000 residential customers and more than 350 business customers purchased green power, which is offered by 65 local power companies.

Transmission/Power Supply Highlights

TVA's transmission system was 99.999 percent reliable in the delivery of power to customers for the fourth consecutive year.

Load-not-served–a measure of the magnitude and duration of transmission system outages affecting TVA customers–was at an all-time low of 4.21 minutes for the year.

TVA placed 34 new delivery points in service, connected five generating plants, and added 138 additional miles of transmission line to its transmission system.

The North American Electric Reliability Council, a voluntary organization that oversees the reliability of the bulk electric transmission system in North America, recognized TVA as one of the best Reliability Coordinator organizations audited in North America.

TVA is responsible for ensuring grid reliability in an area that encompasses Associated Electric Cooperative, Inc., Big Rivers Electric Corporation and East Kentucky Power Cooperative, Inc., as well as the TVA service area.

TVA partnered with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to create the National Transmission Technology Research Center to embrace advances in material sciences.

The center helps develop power lines that carry more electricity, capacitors and dynamic devices that keep voltages stable, and high-speed switches that can react instantly to problems on the grid.

TVA provided several transmission technical experts to national committees and teams investigating the August 14, 2003, blackout that affected the northeastern United States and southern Ontario. The teams, comprised of transmission experts from across the United States and Canada, continue to examine the sequence of events that led to the largest outage in North American history.