TVA Gives Wind Power a Spin

More than 400 homes a year will be powered by three giant turbines atop Buffalo Mountain in the Southeast’s first commercial-scale use of wind power to generate electricity.

The 200-foot-tall white spires topped with 75-foot-long rotors were installed in September in Anderson County. The $3.4-million turbines were hooked to the power grid and became fully operational in October, and were formally dedicated by the Tennessee Valley Authority in November. They will provide about 2 megawatts of electricity.

The power is sold through TVA’s Green Power Switch, a one-year pilot program that allows customers in a dozen of the provider’s 158 local distributors to choose electricity generated by wind, sunlight and landfill gas.

Four solar collectors are up and running in Nashville, Pigeon Forge, Gibson County and Knoxville. Eight more solar sites and a landfill gas-to-energy facility in Middle Tennessee are slated to be working by early next year.

The amount of electricity generated by the wind turbines is not enough to fill TVA’s systemwide demand of about 28,000 megawatts, but TVA chairman Craven Crowell said providing electricity through alternative methods is worthwhile.

“Through this effort we learned that valley consumers prefer wind, solar and landfill gas as renewable energy resources, and that TVA should take a leadership role in developing the use of wind in the Southeast.”