Proudly boasting the closing of coal fired steam plants, TVA can't produce electricity when Americans need it the most. Christmas Eve and hundreds of thousands of people who depend on TVA electricity wake up to dark cold homes because there are power plants that could be making electricity right now except for the fact that the green revolution has put a feather in the caps of the TVA board of directors for reducing emissions.
The once proud TVA utility is in shambles as it fails to perform its basic function: put electricity into the grid when it's vital to the health and well being of it's customers. Rolling blackouts by the federally owned and controlled utility is completely unacceptable. This is not the coldest weather on record. In 1985 it was -5 degrees here but the electricity wasn't deliberately shut off by TVA.
Perhaps putting remote shutoffs on EV charging stations would help instead of shutting off heat to many thousands of homes with babies, infants and elderly people who have no other choice than to sit in the dark around kerosene heaters and candles waiting for TVA to bless them with an hour of electric heat.
This morning my electricity has been blacked out for the third time in two hours. I'm fortunate to have natural gas heat. Even without the gas boiler heat, I can turn on the six burners of the kitchen and get instant heat.
Thanks to the Biden administration and the Green Revolution we've become a third world energy producer. It may be time to demand that the board of directors of TVA be replaced with more compassionate people who remember what their function really is: Produce sufficient electricity to heat everyone's home, cook the Christmas dinner, and provide light to homes and streets of the Tennessee Valley.
Harry Presley
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Yes, quite surprising. TVA's only serving 45 percen tmore customers today than in 1985. What's their problem?
Steve Campbell
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Mr. Presley should be happy that the TVA has the capacity to do a rolling blackout. Chattanooga used to brag about being an all electric city because of the TVA and the low electric rates.
On March 2, 1960 there was a massive ice storm in Chattanooga that took down a lot of trees, destroying the power grid in the city. We had no electric heat, but the stove top and oven would not work. We really did not need a refrigerator because it was cold enough to leave the door of it open. People were dying because they were cooking their meals over grills in the house and the carbon monoxide got too strong.
We, on the other hand had three fireplace and a warm morning heater. That heater could have a top piece of metal taken off and all of the neighbors in the neighborhood were marching up our front steps with what they wanted to cook their meals on the fire box of our heater.
If you have gas heat, when the electricity goes off, you have no heat at all. It is good to be poor sometime.
I had a friend at Banner Elk, NC whose running water was a creek next to the house. His heat was split hardwood. His lights were kerosene storm lamps.
When you have it all good, all you do is complain. I suggest that you get one of those generators that will power your house.
Bill Perry
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Mr. Presley is correct. These outages are the result of demand exceeding supply. Supply that has been reduced by the politics of closing coal fired generating units without reliable all weather capacity replacement. This is not storm damage, and these temperatures are not that unusual. They may not be an every year thing. However we will see single digits at least once a decade, and should plan and prepare for them.
George Odom
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TVA didn't really drop the ball......they kept it rolling with the cards they were dealt.
There is a YouTube video from Grady Hillhouse's The Practical Engineering channel that details what happened during the Texas power grid outage in February 2021. Starting around the 9 minute mark of the video, Grady Hillhouse talks about how maintaining 60 hz frequency is quite important and dependent on load and number of generating systems online.
During the Texas outage, the frequency started falling off as generators fell off line for various reasons and demand kept going up. The frequency fell below the critical breakpoint frequency of 59.4 hz. To get the frequency back up to 60hz, they had to shed load pronto. If they didn't get back above the breakpoint frequency of 59.4 hz within nine minutes, the grid system goes unstable and automatically starts shutting down generators and the electrical grid collapses. The Texas grid was a
little over four minutes from a total grid collapse.
Grady then details the aftermath of a total grid collapse and the long process to bring the grid back up again. It's called a "Black Start" and is lengthy.
So, when we hear TVA is implementing rolling blackouts, they are trying to keep the 60hz frequency and load in balance with the demand.
Phil Snider
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Mr. Presley, I absolutely agree that the TVA dropped the ball. However, your impulse to blame the Biden administration misdirects the entire discussion.
The TVA board of directors was without a quorum until just four days ago. Six appointees were finally confirmed by the Senate to the nine-member board.
I don't know the history of whatever chaos was behind the backlog of appointments, but the problem indicated by the rolling blackout is certainly not the fault of the Biden administration. I for one am grateful the leadership is now on board to fix the problem now before we become like Texas. Let's not create further chaos with misplaced blame.
Frank Wrinn
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Given the information concerning the blackouts from TVA is still lacking in specifics, I would ask all taxpayers of the state of Tennessee to contact your state senators and ask them to hold the board and president of TVA accountable.
We have never had blackouts in the past and it doesn't speak well of how TVA can provide power to the residents of Tennessee much less other states which TVA provides power.
Tim Bittenbender