
Legacy of Savings
Energy Management Program Helps Trim Costs While Benefiting Communities
It’s a quiet winter morning at Adtran headquarters in Huntsville, Alabama.
Inside the lobby, the glow of web servers hints at the many broadband solutions offered to customers around the globe. On the manufacturing floor below, machines print thousands of circuit boards with high speed and precision.
At any given moment, the company’s 80 acres of office space, laboratories, conference centers and warehouses can host upwards of 900 employees.
Managing the energy needs of this sprawling campus is no small feat.
Kelley Whalen, Adtran’s energy manager since 2005, knows this all too well.
“It takes a lot of work,” Whalen said. “The biggest challenge is keeping people from getting complacent. Spreading the energy message in a positive way. Working with different personalities to come up with a good, happy solution and ingraining that into the culture.”
After working alongside the Tennessee Valley Authority and local power company Huntsville Utilities, Whalen and Adtran leaders have found innovative solutions to reduce their facility’s energy consumption.
TVA EnergyRight’s Strategic Energy Management program helped Adtran develop a road map to improve energy efficiency – and the company has reinvested savings into strengthening local schools.
“This program gave us a systematic, organized approach into the strategic energy management side of things,” Whalen said. “It organized everything. Instead of running around doing different projects, we just follow the program.”
Adtran headquarters in Huntsville, Alabama.
Strategies for Success
In his early days at Adtran, Whalen's energy efficiency reports showed the facility consumed 40 million kilowatt hours per year.
He knew they could do better.
About 20 years ago, Whalen began taking steps to improve the company’s energy efficiency. That included connecting with TVA and Huntsville Utilities.
The path to energy stewardship started with small, simple steps.
Upgrading to LED lightbulbs. Installing motion sensors to turn off lights in unused rooms. Leveraging a partnership with TVA EnergyRight.
Fast forward to today. Adtran now operates at less than 19 million kilowatt hours annually – a 53% reduction in power consumption and millions saved on energy bills.
In 2023, to build on their progress, Whalen and the Adtran team joined the Strategic Energy Management program for industrial customers. That marked the start of a two-year initiative aimed at boosting energy efficiency, sustainability and profits – and it helped Adtran meet its community outreach goals by redirecting savings into local schools.
“We’re helping create a conduit where companies can participate in energy efficiency and give back to the local community," Clay Hoover, program manager at TVA EnergyRight, said.
The free Strategic Energy Management program provides companies with energy audits, consultation and monitoring, ultimately assessing where and when energy is consumed and identifying areas for improvement.
Beyond supporting operational efficiency improvement, TVA EnergyRight helps the program’s participants identify capital energy projects that can be incentivized by TVA to further support energy efficiency achievement.
Through load management and demand response programs, the participants can trim demand cost, reduce peak consumption and reduce risks associated with energy price volatility.
Lavell Everett, Buckhorn High School principal.
A Win-Win
To date, 34 companies across TVA’s seven-state region are participating in the Strategic Energy Management program.
And they're seeing the rewards.
Over the past two years, for example, Adtran has saved more than 3 million kilowatt hours, enough to power 422 homes for a year.
The total cost saved in those two years? More than $283,000.
The program has helped Adtran shift its work culture toward energy efficiency, Whalen said.
Employees notify each other if an unused floor has a light on, and security guards conduct energy audits at the end of each day, turning off lights and taking thoughtful steps to mitigate potential energy loss.
These collective efforts are then highlighted on energy dashboards and digital signage displayed throughout hallways at the Adtran facility.
Perhaps most importantly, the program doesn’t sacrifice workplace comfort, Whalen said.
“We don’t want people to be uncomfortable,” he said. “It’s about people, planet and profits. All three have to align.”
Energy efficiency also benefits local power companies by keeping costs lower for customers and reducing demand on the local grid.
“What we’re trying to do, as most utilities, is provide the foundational services that communities rely on,” said Chris Key, business and economic development manager at Huntsville Utilities.
“We want to do what’s right for this community and for you. It’s very helpful having customers like Adtran that are receptive to that message. It takes everybody to really make it work.”
Companies that participate in the Strategic Energy Management program have the option to donate a portion of their savings to energy efficiency improvements in local schools.
“Company profitability is important,” Hoover said. “But when people see that the savings are going to the school they went to, or their kids could potentially go to, it brings it home for everyone.”
This year, Adtran reinvested about 30% of its cash-equivalent savings – $95,000 – into upgrades at Buckhorn High School in New Market, Alabama.
Lavell Everett, the school’s principal, said the funds may help pay for air-quality sensors or other upgrades that promote healthier learning environments for students and staff.
“We’re really grateful that we were in a position to apply and be awarded this grant,” Everett said. “It’s great to see companies giving back and I think people will be excited to see this going back to our schools.”
Students like Rogan Kimbrell are eager to see how the investment helps improve quality of learning.
“It’s amazing to see funding provided to a rural high school to update its utilities and achieve its goals of reducing costs and its environmental footprint,” Kimbrell said.
As TVA advances its mission of providing affordable, reliable and resilient power across the Valley region, the Strategic Energy Management program will continue to help customers like Adtran trim energy costs while uplifting local schools.
“We’re here to make life better for the people that we serve,” Hoover said. “We start with electricity because that’s our core business, but we’re able to leverage that as a mechanism to do greater good. That’s an awesome win.”
Photo Gallery
Adtran energy manager Kelley Whalen greets Everett during a visit to Buckhorn High School.
Buckhorn High School in New Market, Alabama, is poised to receive energy efficiency upgrades as a result of Adtran's savings from the Strategic Energy Management program.
Buckhorn High School in New Market, Alabama.
Left to right are Jason Snyder, TVA EnergyRight; Victoria Willmon, Huntsville Utilities; Chris Key, Huntsville Utilities; Kelley Whalen, Adtran; Lavell Everett, Buckhorn High School.
PHOTO AT TOP OF PAGE: An operator shows how a pick-and-place machine handles circuit board reels at the Adtran manufacturing facility.