2009 Highlights

For more than seven decades, the Tennessee Valley Authority has improved the quality of life in the Tennessee Valley, making our region a better place to live, work, and raise a family.  As a federal corporation and the nation’s largest public power provider, TVA touches millions of lives through three key areas:

• Energy – providing reliable, competitively priced electric power that helps businesses and families prosper.  TVA sells power to 158 local distributors that serve 9 million people and 650,000 businesses and industries. TVA’s seven-state TVA service area covers almost all of Tennessee and parts of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Virginia.  TVA also sells power to about five-dozen large industrial customers and federal installations that account for more than 14 percent of TVA’s total operating revenues.
• Environmental stewardship – TVA helps our region thrive and enables residents to enjoy a higher quality of life by managing the Tennessee River and adjoining lands to provide a better environment for our children and grandchildren. Through its river system operations, TVA helps reduce flood damage, provides for river navigation and power production, maintains water quality and water supply, supports recreation, and promotes wise land use.
• Economic development – building partnerships that foster economic prosperity.  TVA helps companies and communities attract investments that bring good jobs to our region and keep them here.

Financial

• TVA receives no taxpayer dollars. TVA is self-funded from the sale of electricity and financings that provide capital for the power program.
• TVA bonds and notes are backed by the TVA power system rather than guaranteed by the U.S. Government.  They are purchased by investors in all 50 states and more than 60 nations.
• TVA’s rated senior bonds and notes receive the highest possible credit ratings (AAA/Aaa) from major credit rating agencies Standard & Poor’s, Fitch Ratings, and Moody’s Investors Service.
• TVA repays taxpayers for their past investment in the TVA power system. Through 2010, TVA will have returned to the U.S. Treasury an estimated $3.6 billion, including interest, on its original $1.4 billion investment in TVA's power program.

Energy

• TVA’s power system consists of a diverse mix of fuel sources, including fossil, nuclear, hydro, and renewables. TVA has 11 coal-fired, two combined cycle, and eight combustion-turbine sites; three nuclear plants; 29 hydroelectric dams and one pumped-storage plant; and 15 solar power sites, one wind-power site, one digester-gas site, and one biomass co-firing site. 
• TVA provides more electricity than any other public utility in the nation. In 2008, TVA generated more than 160 billion kilowatt-hours, of which coal plants provided about 62 percent, nuclear units produced 32 percent, hydroelectric generated 4 percent, and combustion-turbine and renewable resources contributed 1 percent.
• TVA residential rates are below the national average and TVA programs help consumers use energy wisely.

Reliability and Affordability

• TVA supplies power through a network of 15,856 miles of transmission line; 487 power stations and switchyards; and 1,053 individual interchange and customer connection points. 
• The TVA transmission system has been 99.999 percent reliable nine years in a row.
• TVA expands its facilities to meet rising demand while keeping rates affordable. 
  • In 2007, Browns Ferry Nuclear Unit 1 became the first U.S. nuclear unit brought online in the 21st century. It generates enough safe, clean power to serve a city the size of Chattanooga.
  • TVA is finishing construction of Watts Bar Nuclear Unit 2. It is expected to add a comparable amount of power when it begins service by 2013. 
  • In May 2009, the TVA Board approved construction of an 880-megawatt natural gas-fired power plant in northeast Tennessee.
  • TVA continues to pursue NRC approval to build and operate two Westinghouse AP1000 reactors at the Bellefonte site. The application was developed as part of NuStart consortium efforts to demonstrate the streamlined construction and operating license process.
  • In March 2009, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reinstated the construction permits for Bellefonte Nuclear Units 1 and 2 in north Alabama – a step requested by TVA as it explores the option of completing the units to meet future demand.  Any decision to complete the plant would be made by the TVA Board.

Environment

River and land management

• TVA operates a system of 49 dams and reservoirs on the 652-mile-long Tennessee River and its tributaries and manages 293,000 acres of public land.
• TVA manages the river system as an integrated unit to provide a wide range of benefits including year-round navigation, reduced flooding, economical electrical power, recreational opportunities, improved water quality, and a reliable supply of water to cool power plants and meet municipal and industrial needs.
• Barges on the Tennessee River carry about 54 million tons of goods annually, saving industries about $500 million in freight charges compared with shipping by other means. Rail users save, too, because railroads need to keep rates low to compete with water transportation. This leads to lower prices for consumer goods, fewer trucks on our highways, and cleaner air in our region.
• TVA operates its 34 flood control dams as a unified system to prevent, in an average year, an estimated $240 million in flood damage in the Tennessee Valley and along the Mississippi and Ohio rivers.

Air quality

• TVA works aggressively to improve air quality in the region.
• TVA continues to work aggressively to further improve air quality in the region.  When all current clean air projects are completed, TVA will have invested $5.5 billion in capital from 1977 through 2010 to reduce emissions from its coal-fired power plants.
• TVA has reduced sulfur-dioxide emissions by 84 percent since 1977 and has reduced nitrogen-oxide emissions during the summer ozone season by 82 percent since 1995.

Economic Development

• TVA offers an array of services and financial resources, including capital investment loans for new and growing businesses, site-selection assistance, community development, research and technical services, and women- and minority-owned business support.
• TVA ’s economic development efforts in 2008 helped attract or retain more than 41,000 jobs and leveraged nearly $5.5 billion in capital investment, including $1 billion that Volkswagen of America is investing in a plant near Chattanooga, Tennessee, that will create almost 2,000 jobs
• TVA provides state and local governments across the Valley with annual tax-equivalent payments that help support education, road construction, and other vital community needs.
  • TVA paid state and local governments more than $450 million in lieu of taxes in 2008, an increase of $75 million from the previous year.
  • TVA has made more than $2.5 billion in tax-equivalent payments during the past seven years and expects to pay more than $490 million in 2009.
• For the third consecutive year, Site Selection magazine named TVA one of the Top Utilities of the Year for outstanding economic development achievements.

Community

• Employees donate their time, money, supplies, and equipment to support 70 schools in TVA’s Partners In Education network.
• In 2008, for the second year running, TVA’s signature project was to partner with its customers to build five Habitat for Humanity homes – one each in Knoxville, Memphis, and Nashville, Tennessee and Muscle Shoals and Tuscumbia, Alabama. 
• Overall, in 2008, TVA and its employees donated more than 40,000 hours of volunteer service and more than $2.5 million in cash and in-kind services.

 

 

Page Updated July7, 2009