Power Engineering - TVA plans Power boost in Chattanooga, Tenn.-Area

12 April 2004 - In its biggest transmission upgrade in the Chattanooga area in nearly three decades, the Tennessee Valley Authority is proposing to add a new substation in western Bradley County and expand connections from its Raccoon Mountain Pumped Storage Plant.

The $55m project will help TVA and its distributors respond to the population and business growth in Ooltewah, Apison and the McDonald communities, officials with the federal utility said. At the same time, TVA will be able to reroute some of the increased power generation coming from its upgraded Raccoon Mountain Pumped Storage facility.

TVA officials are looking at purchasing 50 to 60 acres in western Bradley County to house a new power facility to be known as the Bradley substation. The utility has identified four rural sites between the Collegedale and McDonald communities as possible locations for the substation.

So far, TVA officials said, none of the 250 property owners contacted in the region have filed complaints against the project and none formally have offered their land for sale to TVA..

Mr. Sparry said TVA officials should pick a preferred site by May from among the four being considered for the substation.

TVA plans to string high-voltage lines from its existing 500-kilovolt transmission line to the new substation, which will reduce the power load for delivery along another 161 000 kV transmission line. The new substation and transmission lines should help TVA better deliver electricity to Chattanooga's EPB, the Volunteer Electric Cooperative and Cleveland Utilities, officials said. The growth areas targeted for the upgrade have been expanding power consumption by 2 to 4 per cent a year, according to TVA officials.

For the past three years, TVA has maintained 99.999 per cent reliability in delivering power to its distributors such as EPB, according to the agency. For all of last year, the average TVA distributor was without electricity for fewer than five minutes, utility records show.

To help meet growing demand, TVA is boosting its power generation from existing plants by installing more efficient turbines and other equipment. At the 26-year-old Raccoon Mountain pumped storage plant, for instance, the utility is making improvements to add at least 290 MW of power generation.

To dispatch that extra power, TVA will reconfigure its Raccoon Mountain switchyard to prevent overloading on one of its 161 000 kV transmission lines. More power will be dispatched east of Chattanooga over line connections to the Widows Creek Fossil Plant near Stevenson, Ala., the Sequoyah Nuclear Plant near Soddy-Daisy and substations in North Georgia and Southeast Tennessee.

"This is an interconnected system, so power flows where it is needed," said Marjorie Parsons, an electrical planning engineer at TVA. "The transmission improvements also will rebuild up to five miles of transmission line as double-circuit line to connect EPB directly to the new substation."

Add RSS Feed