With temperatures falling below zero degrees in parts of the Tennessee Valley, TVA delivered a record amount of electricity to keep homes and buildings warm Wednesday morning even as frigid temperatures and icy roads outside claimed the lives of at least seven Tennesseans this week.
The Tennessee Department of Health reported two deaths each in Shelby and Washington counties, while other deaths were reported in Knox, Hickman and Madison counties. Knoxville Police reported a 50-year-old man from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, died Monday when the Budget rental truck he was driving slid in the accumulated snow and rear-ended a tractor-trailer, according to the Knoxville News Sentinel.
TVA said electricity demand soared to a record high 34,526 megawatts Wednesday morning at 9 a.m. EST when temperatures across the Tennessee Valley averaged only 4 degrees Fahrenheit, according to preliminary power figures released by TVA.
But unlike TVA's previous winter power peak reached just before Christmas 2022 during Winter Storm Elliott, TVA was able to deliver enough power to meet the electricity demand across its seven-state region this week. Although there were hundreds of scattered power outages due to downed power lines and other distribution problems among the 153 local power companies like EPB that deliver TVA power, TVA was able to generate and buy enough electricity to meet the record-high power peak.
(READ MORE: TVA braces for cold weather, urges conservation)
TVA President Jeff Lyash said TVA crews worked to prepare for the cold weather, and the utility appealed for energy conservation Wednesday to help lower the peak demand.
Power deliveries were limited to industrial and large commercial customers with interruptible power contracts. Such customers get lower rates in exchange for giving TVA the right to cut a portion of their power when needed. In Chattanooga, EPB has about a half dozen such customers.
"The men and women of TVA work around the clock to keep everyone safe and warm during the bitterly cold weather we're experiencing," Lyash said in a video message posted on TVA's Facebook page. "Our power system remains stable with our generating plants operating as planned."
The previous record for system load for TVA was 33,482 megawatts set Aug. 16, 2007, during a heat wave with temperatures above 100 degrees across the TVA region.
The previous record load for a winter day was 33,427 megawatts set Dec. 23, 2022, during Winter Storm Elliott.
(READ MORE: TVA cuts power to customers during Winter Storm Elliott)
TVA spokesperson Scott Fiedler said the federal utility invested more than $123 million in the past year to upgrade its equipment and help ensure coal and natural gas plants stayed operational and didn't freeze up as they did in the last major Arctic freeze during Winter Storm Elliott. In the two days before Christmas 2022, TVA's biggest coal generator at the Cumberland Fossil Plant near Clarksville, Tennessee, was knocked off the grid and a dozen natural gas generators quit working due to frozen equipment lines.
In the past year, TVA also built new gas plants in Alabama and Kentucky that combined added 1,500 megawatts of new natural gas generation -- enough to power 878,000 homes, Fiedler said.
While TVA usually has the highest power demand from air conditioners in the summer months, the winter cold also boosts power demand as more people turn to electrified heat sources, pushing demand higher on cold winter mornings.
Winter months also limit the availability of solar generation in the morning hours, Fiedler said.
On Tuesday just ahead of Wednesday's all-time power peak, TVA reached a power peak of 31,618 megawatts at 9 p.m. when temperatures across the Tennessee Valley averaged 13 degrees.
Most of the Tennessee Valley is expected to remain at or below the freezing mark until Thursday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service.
The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency activated its Emergency Operations Center to provide a higher level of resources to communities around the state coping with some of the coldest weather in Tennessee in the past decade, the agency said in a news release.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6340.