Tennessee Valley Authority
Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act
Update — August, 2007
At its meeting on August 1, 2007, the TVA Board made its determination on the PURPA Standards set forth in the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 as amended by the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The Acts require TVA to consider adopting for itself and the distributors of TVA power five new PURPA standards. These five standards are Net Metering, Fuel Sources, Fossil Fuel Generation Efficiency, Time-based Metering and Communications (or Smart Metering), and Interconnection. The TVA Board’s determinations on each standard follow. More information about the process to make recommendations to the Board and considerations by the Board may be found on the Federal Register.
Net Metering
The Board revised and adopted as follows:
TVA will make available to distributors of TVA power, upon request, the option to participate in a dual-metering purchase program modeled after TVA’s current Generation partners pilot program. Under this dual-metering purchase program, TVA will purchase all electric energy generated by an electric consumer from an eligible on-site generating facility and delivered to the local distribution facilities, and accordingly, two meters will be used to separately measure electricity usage and electricity production.
Fuel Diversity
The Board adopted the standard as written.
Fossil Fuel Generation Efficiency
The Board revised and adopted as follows:
TVA shall develop and implement a five-year plan to increase the efficiency of its fossil fuel generation.
Smart Metering
The Board revised and adopted as follows:
TVA will initiate a rate change in accordance with the provisions of its wholesale power contract with the distributors of TVA power to assess in detail 1) the benefits and cost of implementing a mandatory time-based rate schedule for large retail customer, under which the retail rates reflect seasonal and time of-day variations in the costs of generating and purchasing electricity, 2) the benefits and cost of implementing advanced metering and communications technology to help the electric consumer manage energy use and costs, and 3) other factors affecting them implementation of such structures as soon as feasible.
Interconnection
The Board revised and adopted as follows:
TVA shall make available, upon request, interconnection service for generators with output of 20 MW or less to any electric consumer that it serves. For purposes of this paragraph, the term “interconnection service” means service to an electric consumer under which an on-site generating facility on the consumer’s premises shall be connected tot eh local distribution facilities.
TVA shall make such interconnection services available based on upon codes and standards to be specified in small generator interconnection procedures, which procedures shall include the standards developed by the Institute of Electric and Electronics Engineers: IEEEE Standard 1547 for Interconnecting Distributed Resources with Electric Power Systems, as they may be amended from time to time.
Power distributors served by TVA shall also make available, upon request, such small generator interconnections services to any electric consumers that the power distributor serves. In providing such service, the power distributor may at its option adopt procedures comparable to the TVA procedures discussed above, or other, comparable procedures which address distributor-specific safety, reliability, operating, and cost-recovery requirements.
In addition, agreements and procedures shall be established whereby such interconnection services offered by TVA and the distributors of TVA power shall promote current best practices of interconnection for distributed generation. All such agreements and procedures shall be just and reasonable, and not unduly discriminatory or preferential.