This article appears on the TVA web site at http://www.tva.gov/environment/ongoing.htm

Wind Power Added to Green Energy Mix        

           
November 14, 2000 — TVA has added wind power to its renewable energy sources with the dedication of a new wind-turbine park near Oliver Springs, Tennessee. The Buffalo Mountain Wind Park represents the first commercial use of wind power to generate electricity in the Southeastern United States.

  (Photo courtesy TVA) 

Three huge wind-powered generators were erected on the two-acre site in the fall of 2000 at a cost of $3.4 million. The generators add about 2 megawatts of capacity to the TVA power system and produce some six million kilowatt-hours of electricity a year, enough to serve more than 400 typical households in the Tennessee Valley. Electricity from the turbines is fed into the nearby Clinton Utilities Board power system, which is connected to the TVA power grid.

The electricity is sold through TVA’s clean-energy option, called Green Power Switch. It’s a one-year market test that gives consumers the option of adding electricity generated by renewable sources to the existing power mix. “Wind power is an important part of Green Power Switch, the consumer-choice program developed through a unique collaboration between TVA, distributors of TVA power, and the environmental community,” TVA Chairman Craven Crowell said. “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.”

TVA is exploring other sites for additional wind generation, Crowell said. Four solar sites are currently producing electricity and eight others will be operating by next year. Landfill gas will also be added to the green power mix in 2001.

The Buffalo Mountain Wind Park sits atop a reclaimed strip mine. The land is owned by Coal Creek Mining and Manufacturing Company of Knoxville, Tennessee, and leased to TVA. Vestas Wind Systems of Denmark made the generators, rotors, towers, and other equipment, and enXco, of Palm Springs, California, built the park.

Get more information on wind turbine energy at the Green Power Switch Web site.