Tennessee Valley Authority saw record demand for electricity this morning with single digit temperatures across the region.
TVA Spokesperson Scott Brooks said usage was the highest since summer 2007 and the third largest demand in TVA history.
“Preliminary numbers, and again we usually take about 24 hours to verify that the numbers are not gonna change, but from what we’ve seen so far today we set a record breaking winter demand this morning with an estimated 33,345 megawatts, and that was with an average temperature across the seven-state region at 7 degrees,” he said.
The utility reports it relied on diverse generating sources during the high demand receiving 29 percent from coal-fired power plants, 21 percent from nuclear facilities and 24 percent from natural gas facilities. The rest was pulled from hydroelectric dams, wind farms and market purchases.
Brooks said TVA began taking precautions Thursday before asking the public to curtail their usage.
“It was business as usual for us this morning but we did begin curtailing our own usage sometime yesterday afternoon which means in TVA buildings and facilities we turn the thermostats down a little bit, and we turned off any unnecessary appliances and electronics just like we were asking consumers to do,” he said. “That’s going to continue probably for the morning and anytime now we should be stepping out of that.”
Brooks said TVA didn’t have to call on its customers with interruptible service contracts like it did earlier this month. On Jan. 7, Murray State University was one of those customers asked to shut off its power.
