The cold weather today pushed power demand in the Tennessee Valley to the third highest wintertime peak ever when temperatures across region fell to an average of only 8 degrees.
TVA and its 155 distributors voluntarily restricted their own heating use and a few customers voluntarily agreed to cut their demand, but TVA had no trouble meeting the peak electricity demand this morning around 8 a.m. EST, TVA spokesman Scott Brooks said.
TVA’s all-time winter peak for power use was set on Jan 24, 2014 when temperatures fell even lower during the Polar Vortex and demand umped to 33,352 megawatts.
Over the past five days, TVA’s power load has swing a record-setting 165 percent from the low levels of power use Sunday morning when milder temperatures prevailed in the Tennessee Valley until this morning when the wind chill index was below zero in much of TVA’s 7-state region.
In Chattanooga, where temperatures fell to 9 degrees Fahrenheit this morning, EPB’s demand rose to 1,308 megawatts – just 20 megawatts short of its all-time high, EPB spokesman John Pless said.
More than two thirds of the homes and businesses in the Tennessee Valley heat their buildings with electric heat. For every temperature drop of 1 degrees below freezing, demand for TVA electricity jumps by 400 megawatts, according Jacinda Woodward, senior vice president of TVA Transmission and Power Supply.