With snow and ice on the way for much of the South, here's how the TVA is preparing for potential power outages.
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00:00The Mid-South is bracing for the biggest ice and snow event so far this season.
00:04Power companies are preparing as well. The TVA, the Tennessee Valley Authority,
00:09they provide energy to more than 150 local power companies across Tennessee and six other states.
00:16Greg Henrich, he's the VP of Transmission Operations for the TVA.
00:20All right, Greg, thanks so much for joining us. We have a couple questions for you. Number one,
00:23what challenges does this upcoming winter storm have on that power delivery?
00:28Yeah, yeah, welcome. Thank you for having me on here, Damian. And again, as I was telling you
00:32maybe ahead of this, that, you know, it's an interesting transition that we're in right now
00:36because we're just now seeing winter storm Blair exit the Tennessee Valley Service Territory,
00:42and that brought us some cooler temperatures than normal. We saw a peak of the week this morning,
00:46but handled it well with some reserves in our generation and delivered the energy consumption
00:54just fine. And looking forward now, we see that winter storm Cora entering the Service Territory
01:00this evening, heading in across the weekend. You know, as much as Texas probably isn't used to
01:05snow, we also aren't used to this much significant amount of snow. This storm looks to dump wintry
01:12precipitation across about 90% of the Tennessee Valley, which is a bit unusual for us. We're
01:18preparing well. Most of it's going to come in dry, powdery snow in the northern part of Tennessee,
01:24maybe, you know, up to six to eight inches there, one to three inches lower in the Tennessee Valley.
01:30And then ultimately what we're really watching is that potential for icing and freezing rain
01:35in the North Alabama, North Mississippi, and North Georgia areas. And you know, what causes
01:40the problems there is once the ice accumulates on the power lines or on the trees, that's when
01:45you can see down trees into power lines, down power lines, down power poles, which is both not
01:50only dangerous for the public, but it also results in those power outages that we learn to anticipate
01:56heading into a storm like this. All right, Greg, so how has the TVA and your crews been preparing
02:01for not only the higher power usage, but also the potential for power outages?
02:08Yeah, again, we're used to this type of work, so we know to go ahead and stage
02:12crews and equipment strategically across the territory where we see the highest risk or highest
02:17threat of some of these power outages. And again, that for us is in the lower part of our service
02:23territory. We also have to, as you can see on the screen with the plants, we have some exposed
02:28equipment to the elements. We have to make sure that equipment is protected, insulated. We have
02:34enclosures built around it so it's protected from both the wind and the rain so that they don't have
02:38any freezing instrumentation or control systems that cause issues at the plants. And then finally,
02:44is from an energy consumption standpoint, we actually do a 10-day hourly weather forecast
02:51that then we highly, it's highly correlated to the energy consumption. Then we build that 10-day
02:56plan and as you all well know in the industry, every day closer that you get, we get a little
03:01bit more certainty around that forecast and ultimately build the plan to execute to deliver
03:06the power to the 10 million people of the Tennessee Valley. All right, Greg, speaking of those 10
03:11million people that you were talking about, what advice would you give to them to stay safe during
03:16this upcoming storm? Yeah, you know, it's really probably prudent to pay attention to the National
03:23Weather Service or local weather because it's unique to each individual area and region. Just
03:27pay attention to what are the temperatures and wind chills, what are the conditions, what are
03:32the road conditions anticipated to be, you know, stay off the roads if at all possible.
03:36And then lastly, if you are out in the roads, make sure that you've got, you know, a warm set of
03:40clothes, some boots and some blankets in the car in case you get into a traffic jam or a breakdown.
03:45So, you know, some of the standard protocols, but really just paying attention to the conditions
03:50local in your area. All right, Greg Henders, VP of Transmissions Operations for the TVA, joining us
03:55from Chattanooga, Tennessee, The Local. Thank you so much for joining us, Greg. Thank you, Damian.