Unit 2 senior manager of operations Tom Wallace walks up the stairs to the Unit 2 cooling tower of TVA’s Watts Bar nuclear plant Wednesday, April 29, 2015, in Spring City, Tenn. TVA plans for the nuclear plant’s second reactor unit to come online by the end of the year.One of Chattanooga’s biggest employers is getting more profitable by getting smaller.
The Tennessee Valley Authority, which cut nearly 2,000 jobs over the past two years to trim its staff to the lowest level in 81 years, plans to cut another 200 jobs in the next year. TVA President Bill Johnson said Tuesday the latest staff cuts will come primarily at coal plants that TVA is shutting down, including the Widows Creek Fossil Plant near Bridgeport, Ala.
Widows Creek, which TVA began building in 1952, is one of five coal-fired power plants in Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky that TVA either has or soon plans to shut down or will curtail operations at to comply with environmental regulations and shifting power demands.
By the numbers
$609 million: TVA net income in the first nine months of fiscal 2015, up from $147 million in the same period a year ago.$7.7 billion: TVA power sales in the first nine months of fiscal 2015, down 1.9 percent from the same period a year ago6.7 cents: Average price per kilowatt of TVA power this year, down 1.5 percent from the previous year$397 million: TVA savings this year in operating and maintenance costs
The staff cuts also are part of TVA’s three-year program to cut $500 million in annual operating expenses. By cutting staff and selected programs and taking advantage of cheaper natural gas, purchased power and coal, TVA officials said Tuesday the utility has more than quadrupled its net income in the current fiscal year compared with a year ago.