AUB’S POWER RATES ARE SOME OF THE BEST IN THE TVA REGION
ATHENS, Tenn. – In our region of the Tennessee valley, winter always brings on wintertime power rates from TVA, which are a bit higher than the transition rates of the fall season.
Athens Utilities Board (AUB) maintains transparency on all of its rates and always lets customers know whether they are headed up or down.
“When we announced the current December wintertime rate, we were not surprised that some customers were upset. That’s understandable anytime the rate goes up for any reason, even when it is purely via the TVA seasonal schedule. We’d all love to have free power if we could get it, but that can’t happen,” said AUB’s Wayne Scarbrough.
“But we are glad to say that AUB’s power rates are some of the very best in the multi-state region of Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia,” he said.
AUB General Manager Eric Newberry said that AUB is always in the lowest rate-rankings among all TVA distributors.
“The worst ranking AUB has had in the last six years was in 2016, when we ranked eighth out of 153 distributors. Our rates were lower than 145 other power distributors in the seven-state region and were in the best five percent of all valley distributors in terms of the cheapest rates,” said AUB General Manager Eric Newberry.
“So, in fact, our rates were cheaper than 95 percent of all of the 153 power distributors in TVA’s service area,” he said.
And it is worth noting that 2016 was AUB’s worst year in terms of that ranking in the past few years.
“Fast forward to fiscal year 2021 and you’ll see that we ranked fourth out of 153 valley distributors and in the top three percent of all of TVA distributors in terms of cost competitiveness with our current rates,” Newberry said.
That places AUB’s power rates lower than 149 other distributors in the seven-state region that make up the valley.
AUB’s ranking stays among the best of all TVA distributors. Some years it goes down a place or two, when AUB has a needed rate increase for instance, but as other distributors have to raise their rates AUB’s ranking again goes up favorably and remains steadily among the best of all distributors.
“We’re proud of that, certainly. And we appreciate our customers because most of them understand that our city and region is among the best,” Scarbrough said.
“While we’d love to be the lowest of all distributors every single year, we are very happy to place where we do because we know it serves our area well, for residents and businesses alike,” Newberry added.
Data from TVA show that for the last five years, AUB has had the lowest power rate among all similar-sized distributors valley-wide and among all neighboring distributors.
“I think most of our customers realize that our rates are extremely competitive in our region. And when you consider other parts of the country that haven’t seen rates this low in many years, it really makes you proud,” Newberry said.
“We’ll keep doing our part to keep AUB among the very best, you can count on that.”
About 83 cents of every dollar that AUB’s power division collects go to TVA for wholesale power.
