Weather – cold, wet and hot in turn – drove Tennessee Valley Authority to higher revenue and lower costs over a nine-month period, agency executives said Friday.
Record lows in January meant more power for heating, heavy rain meant more hydroelectric generation, and hot recent weeks mean more power used cooling, TVA President and CEO Bill Johnson said during a third-quarter earnings conference call.
That added up to a 6 percent hike in electricity sales over the same nine-month period in the previous fiscal year, resulting in a 5 percent increase in revenue.
Altogether, TVA had $8 billion in operating revenue, and $1.2 billion in net income for the nine-month period which ended June 30, the agency reported.
Operating expenses were down 4 percent over the same nine months, compared to the previous year. That’s a cut of $85 million. Fuel costs were down $68 million, or 4 percent, “due to the impact of lower effective fuel rates caused by lower market prices for natural gas and more hydroelectric and gas generation,” a TVA news release said.
Jim Gaines – Knoxville News Sentinel – August 3, 2018.
ABOUT
The Tennessee Valley Authority is a federally owned electricity corporation. An act of Congress established the company in 1933 to help the Tennessee Valley overcome environmental and economic problems. Now TVA provides power for the entire state of Tennessee and parts of six bordering states.
The corporation also provides flood control, navigation and management for the Tennessee River System. The company has a diverse power plant portfolio that includes nuclear, fossil, diesel, hydroelectric, natural gas, solar and wind energy. The corporation funds its own operations by the sale of its electricity to power distributors.