00:00The Mid-South is bracing for the biggest ice and snow event so far this season.
00:04Power companies are preparing as well. The TVA, the Tennessee Valley Authority,
00:09they provide energy to more than 150 local power companies across Tennessee and six other states.
00:16Greg Henrich, he's the VP of Transmission Operations for the TVA. All right, Greg,
00:20thanks so much for joining us. We have a couple questions for you. Number one,
00:23what challenges does this upcoming winter storm have on that power delivery?
00:27Yeah, yeah, welcome. Thank you for having me on here, Damian. And again, as I was telling you
00:33maybe ahead of this, that, you know, it's an interesting transition that we're in right now
00:37because we're just now seeing winter storm Blair exit the Tennessee Valley Service Territory,
00:43and that brought us some cooler temperatures than normal. We saw a peak of the week this morning,
00:48but handled it well with some reserves in our generation and delivered the energy consumption
00:54just fine. And looking forward now, we see that winter storm Cora entering the Service Territory
01:00this evening, heading in across the weekend. You know, as much as Texas probably isn't used
01:05to snow, we also aren't used to this much significant amount of snow. This storm looks
01:11to dump wintry precipitation across about 90% of the Tennessee Valley, which is a bit unusual for
01:17us. We're preparing well. Most of it's going to come in dry, powdery snow in the northern part
01:23of Tennessee, maybe, you know, up to six to eight inches there, one to three inches lower in the
01:29Tennessee Valley. And then ultimately what we're really watching is that potential for icing and
01:34freezing rain in the North Alabama, North Mississippi, and North Georgia areas. And, you know,
01:39what causes the problems there is once the ice accumulates on the power lines or on the trees,
01:44that's when you can see down trees into power lines, down power lines, down power poles, which
01:49is both not only dangerous for the public, but it also results in those power outages that we
01:55learn to anticipate heading into a storm like this. All right, Greg. So how has the TVA and
02:00your crews been preparing for the, not only the higher power usage, but also the potential for
02:05power outages? Yeah, again, we're used to this type of work. So we know to go ahead and stage
02:12crews and equipment strategically across the territory where we see the highest risk or
02:17highest threat of some of these power outages. And again, that for us is in the lower part of
02:22our service territory. We also have to, as you can see on the screen with the plants, we have some
02:27exposed equipment to the elements. We have to make sure that equipment is protected, insulated.
02:34We have enclosures built around it. So it's protected from both the wind and the rain so
02:37that they don't have any freezing instrumentation or control systems that cause issues at the plants.
02:43And then finally, from an energy consumption standpoint, we actually do a 10-day hourly
02:49weather forecast that then we highly, it's highly correlated to the energy consumption. And we build
02:55that 10-day plan. And as you all well know in the industry, every day closer that you get,
03:00we get a little bit more certainty around that forecast and ultimately build the plan to execute,
03:05to deliver the power to the 10 million people of the Tennessee Valley. All right, Greg, speaking
03:10of those 10 million people that you were talking about, what advice would you give to them to stay
03:15safe during this upcoming storm? Yeah, you know, it's really probably prudent to pay attention to
03:22the National Weather Service, your local weather, because it's unique to each individual area and
03:27region. Just pay attention to what are the temperatures and wind chills, what are the
03:31conditions, what are the road conditions anticipated to be, you know, stay off the roads,
03:35if at all possible. And then lastly, if you are out in the roads, make sure that you've got,
03:39you know, a warm set of clothes, some boots and some blankets in the car in case you get into a
03:44traffic jam or a breakdown. So, you know, some of the standard protocols, but really just paying
03:48attention to the conditions local in your area. All right, Greg Henders, VP of Transmissions
03:53Operations for the TVA, joining us from Chattanooga, Tennessee, the local. Thank you so much
03:58for joining us, Greg.
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