Green Power Switch® Generation Partners Neighborhood Grows
Mar. 8, 2004
LENOIR CITY, Tenn. – Two more homes in Lenoir City will produce electricity for the TVA power system as part of the Green Power Switch® Generation Partners program sponsored by TVA and Lenoir City Utilities Board.
Generation Partners pays homeowners to produce electricity from environment friendly sources. TVA purchases 100 percent of the green power produced by the home. Participants receive a credit of 15 cents per kilowatt-hour on their power bill.
“Generation Partners not only provides more green power for TVA’s power system, but it also helps make renewable energy more cost-effective for consumers,” said TVA Director Skila Harris.
Generation Partners is offered by TVA and participating distributors of TVA power. Power purchased through the program will be made available to subscribers of Green Power Switch, a renewable energy program offered by TVA and 66 local power companies.
“Lenoir City Utilities Board is proud to partner with TVA in an effort to make green power more accessible and affordable for our customers,” said Lenoir City Utilities Board General Manager Kenneth Dutton.
The two new houses in the program are in the same neighborhood as Lenoir City’s first GPS Generation Partner, a home built in 2002 by Loudon County Habitat for Humanity under the guidance of the Department of Energy’s Building America Program. The houses are equipped with two-kilowatt solar panels. Oak Ridge National Laboratory and three Building America teams designed and are monitoring all three “Zero Net Energy” dwellings.
Zero Net Energy houses combine advanced energy-efficiency construction techniques and renewable technologies to minimize energy requirements. More advanced energy efficiency technology ensures that the new homes will be more energy efficient than the first. The homeowners’ average cost of power is less than a dollar a day after the solar credits.
After two months of monitoring, ORNL has determined that one of the new homes equipped with an energy-efficient geothermal heat pump and new solar panels consumes 19 percent less total energy and produces 11 percent more solar energy than the first house. The latest homes are owned by Isaac and Rebecca Goodman and Charles “Cotton” Duncan and Becky Clark. They were completed in December.
The GPS Generation Partners demonstration is open to new participants through Dec. 31, 2005. Residential consumers may also be eligible for a one-time incentive payment of $500 from TVA for participation. Read more about the program.
TVA is the nation’s largest public power provider and is completely self-financed. TVA provides power to large industries and 158 power distributors that serve 8.3 million consumers in seven southeastern states.
Media Contact:
Media Contact: Lucha Ramey, Knoxville (865-632-8385) or TVA News Bureau, Knoxville (865-632-6000)
