AS “WINTER” CONTINUES, MARCH POWER RATE FALLS
March marks the last month of TVA’s “winter” season in rate classification and the rates that coincide with them.
The power rate for March will go down, as TVA has announced their fuel rate for the month will fall to $0.02780 from the current $0.03541.
For March, the power rate will be $0.10024 compared to the February rate of $0.10785.
“It is important for all customers to understand that AUB’s portion of the rate is unchanged from last month. TVA is lowering their fuel rate this month, which we welcome,” said AUB’s Wayne Scarbrough.
AUB’s portion of the rate for March is $0.07244, exactly the same as it was in December, January and February. March 2023 will be the last of four months during the “winter” rate season. April and May will be what called “transition” months, when AUB’s power rate is the lowest of the year.
All of this comes in the wake of TVA representatives testifying before Tennessee lawmakers on February 7 about the rolling blackouts that TVA enforced on local power companies on December 23 and 24.
“Just before Christmas was the first time that we have ever had to take the step of actually cutting people’s power off in order to save the TVA grid,” said AUB’s Wayne Scarbrough.
“We hated to have to take such drastic measures, especially when TVA had been in the news leading up to December 23 saying that all was well, that they were totally prepared for the cold that we knew was coming,” he said.
AUB did its part in helping to save its customers from greater measures, such as TVA simply “pulling the plug” on the local utility’s grid.
“That would have been the next step, called Step 60, which is TVA’s emergency tripping of firm power load. We and other utilities across the region did what we had to do to keep that from happening. We greatly appreciate the patience and resilience that our customers showed during this unprecedented event,” Scarbrough said.
“We believe that TVA should do what is necessary to avoid this type of event in the future. No question about that. And we believe they should, at least for this year, take a serious look at the bonuses they give out every November to the tune of $160 million dollars and more instead of leaning on ratepayers to make up any shortfall,” said AUB’s General Manager Eric Newberry.
“We understand they have needs to strengthen their system. But they will pay to meet those needs via money from our ratepayers and then likely turn around and give out $160 million dollars or more in bonuses to a workforce that already is justly compensated,” he said.
The money will come from AUB’s customers and all other power customers in the Valley because that is the only place that TVA gets money.
AUB’s power rate has increased less than eight percent in the past 25 years. TVA, however, has increased its rate by more than 62-percent in fewer than 20 years.
“Those are the facts. AUB has had less that an eight percent increase in its power rate in more than 25 years. But TVA has increased their power rate, which just pour over on our ratepayers, more than 60 percent in less time. We don’t understand why TVA won’t operate like a true public power provider,” Scarbrough said.
About 83 cents of every dollar that AUB’s power division collects go to TVA for wholesale power.
