Stimulus Money at Work: TVA Signs Contract for 450 MW of Wind Power
What happens when two stimulus-funded power projects meet? They sign a PPA, obviously. Yesterday, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a New Deal creation, built to bring electricity to some of America’s poorest and most underdeveloped areas, signed for 450 megawatts of wind power. The contract bolstered the federal agency’s green energy portfolio. Green energy is a sector that is largely supported by the Obama administration’s own stimulus program. These are the sorts of parallels that GER likes to highlight.
Back to the news… CPV Renewable Energy Company, an affiliate of Competitive Power Ventures, will supply the TVA with 200 megawatts generated by Ashley Wind Project in McIntosh County, N.D. Chicago-based Invenergy will supply up to 250 megawatts from its Hurricane Lake Energy Center in Roberts County, S.D.
Power from these two farms is expected to start flowing to the TVA by 2012.
TVA produces some 3,830 megawatts from renewable sources. The reality is that a large chunk of that output is hydro-generated, which some say is not a renewable resource because of the negative impact dams have on the environment. TVA has set out to generate more than 50 percent of its electricity from non-carbon emitting sources that include nuclear, modernized hydroelectric and renewables.
