Tennessee Valley Authority
TVA Bull Run Plant Project Earns Environmental Business Award
February 11, 2010
CLINTON, Tenn. – A project to reduce emissions at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Bull Run Fossil Plant has won the Environmental Business Journal 2009 Business Achievement Award for Air Pollution Control.
The smokestack scrubber system, in service since December 2008, has cut the plant’s sulfur dioxide emissions 98 percent, or about 95,000 tons per year. The project is part of TVA’s $172 million investment in 2009 to reduce fossil plant emissions.
“These award-winning improvements at Bull Run are indicative of the clean-air upgrades being made at many of our fossil plants,” said Ron Nash, program manager for TVA’s Fossil Power Group. “The emissions reductions and national awards associated with this project reflect our commitment to improve air quality in the Tennessee Valley.”
TVA contracted with Advatech, a Franklin, Tenn.-based scrubber technology firm, to install the Bull Run system. The company, which will receive the Business Achievement Award March 3 at the publication’s annual conference in San Diego, also has contracted work at other TVA coal-fired sites, including the Paradise plant in Kentucky, the Colbert plant in Alabama and the Kingston plant in Tennessee.
Bull Run generates more than six billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year, enough to supply about 430,000 homes. The power plant ranks consistently among the most efficient and reliable coal-fired plants in the nation.
The plant’s new scrubber, technically known as a flue-gas desulfurization system, routes gases produced from burning coal through fountains of slurry consisting of limestone and water to remove sulfur dioxide, a chemical that contributes to acid rain. Bull Run also burns low-sulfur coal to help reduce sulfur dioxide and uses a variety of combustion controls and other technologies to lower nitrogen oxide emissions which contribute to smog and acid rain.
Across its fleet of coal-fired power plants, TVA has cut sulfur dioxide emissions by 85 percent since 1977 and nitrogen oxide emissions by 82 percent since 1995 under an ongoing $5.5 billion program to reduce fossil plant emissions. For more information about TVA fossil-fuel generation, visit http://www.tva.com/power/fsslfax.htm.
The Environmental Business Journal, produced by ZweigWhite Publishers, provides strategic information, market research and other business services for government agencies, investors and companies in the environmental industry. For more information on the Environmental Business Journal awards, visit http://www.ebiresearch.com/2009_EBJ_Awards.
The Tennessee Valley Authority, a corporation owned by the U.S. government, provides electricity for utility and business customers in most of Tennessee and parts of Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia – an area of 80,000 square miles with a population of 9 million. TVA operates 29 hydroelectric dams, 11 coal-fired power plants, three nuclear plants and 11 natural gas-fired power facilities and supplies up to 36,000 megawatts of electricity, delivered over 16,000 miles of high-voltage power lines. TVA also provides flood control, navigation, land management and recreation for the Tennessee River system and works with local utilities and state and local governments to promote economic development across the region. TVA, which makes no profits and receives no taxpayer money, is funded by sales of electricity to its customers. Electricity prices in TVA’s service territory are below the national average. .
Media Contact
Scott Brooks, (865) 632-8031
TVA News Bureau, Knoxville (865) 632-6000