Staff Photo by John Rawlston
Nathaniel Stubblefield, left, and Carl David, working on the utility pole in the center, are among those attending a 15-week session at the Southeast Lineman Training Center south of Trenton. Students come from a wide variety of locations to train to work on power lines.

As Chattanoogans shivered through near-freezing temperatures Monday, TVA offered another reprieve from last year’s record jump in electricity prices to help warm the pocketbooks of its customers.

Electricity prices in the Tennessee Valley will decline another 1.5 percent in November, reflecting the decline in fuel prices from the recession and the rise in hydroelectric generation from recent rains.

The typical Chattanooga homeowner who heats with electricity should save about $1.36 next month from the rate cut, EPB Chief Financial Officer Greg Eaves estimated Monday.

Depending upon power usage, most residential electricity users in Southeast Tennessee and Northwest Georgia should save from $1 to $2 a month from the latest drop in TVA’s fuel cost adjustment, he said.

“I’m a single mom with four kids who struggles to pay my power bill every month so every little bit helps,” East Chattanooga resident Joella McKevie said Monday after paying her $113 monthly power bill. “I hope it continues.”

The November price drop will be TVA’s fifth such wholesale rate cut this year caused by falling fuel prices. Collectively, the fuel cost adjustments since January have offset all but 6 percent of the 33 percent jump in power bills during 2008.

“As the weather starts getting colder, we know our customers will really appreciate any reduction in the price of electricity, especially in today’s tough economy,” said Robert McCarty, communications coordinator for Volunteer Energy Cooperative, which distributes TVA power to 111,000 customers in 17 counties in East and Middle Tennessee.

TVA’s overall rates have increased slightly over the past couple of years because of three increases in the utility’s base rates in the past 18 months. TVA adjusts a portion of its rates automatically every month to reflect changes in the market prices of fuel used to generate electricity. The TVA board must vote on any base rate changes.

Despite cheaper prices for natural gas, coal and borrowing expenses, TVA has had to absorb increased costs for building more power plants and cleaning up a massive coal ash spill at its Kingston Fossil Plant near Harriman, Tenn.

TVA spokesman Jim Allen said the utility is benefiting by above-average production from its 29 hydroelectric dams after three years of below average generation because of the drought. Hydropower is TVA’s cheapest source of electricity.

Despite an uptick in gasoline prices over the past two weeks, natural gas prices remain less than half the levels reached a year ago.

“Plentiful supply and weak demand for natural gas have led to relatively weak prices,” the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas said in a report released Monday. “After adjusting for seasonality, gas inventories are at their highest levels in 15 years and approaching capacity limits.”

Natural gas generates most of the power that TVA purchases from independent power producers.

TVA is the nation’s largest government utility and generates power for 8 million Americans through municipalities and power cooperates in its seven-state region.