Will leaving TVA help MLGW save Memphians millions?
News reports and expert studies agree that leaving the Tennessee Valley Authority will save Memphis Light, Gas, and Water (MLGW) $300 to $400 hundred million dollars per year. That is more than enough to justify the expense of changing power providers for a cleaner, lower-cost alternative.
The key to the success of this proposition will most likely be a combination of Memphis generating its own cleaner, environmentally safer, lower-cost power and purchasing some electricity through the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO).
If you doubt the capability of MISO to be part of Memphis’s solution to leaving TVA, just ask one of MISO’S 471 serviced customers – a long list which even includes TVA itself.
Purchasing electricity from MISO is not only cheaper but also safe, reliable, and convenient. Those are the same reasons that other cities buy electricity from MISO. Numerous communities larger and smaller than Memphis rely on MISO to supply their wholesale electricity.some MISO customers are as close to Memphis as West Memphis, Arkansas, or North Mississippi and as far away as New Orleans, Louisiana, Indianapolis, Indiana, and Cleveland, Ohio. These communities have been served by MISO for years and seem to do quite well. Servicing Memphis’s power needs would be well within in the capacity of MISO, whose service area ranges from Canada to the Gulf Coast. That area is about five times larger than TVA’S range. In fact, MISO has about five times the electricity sales as TVA.
Several reports by independent consultants and even the Siemens Group, hired by MLGW to facilitate their Independent Resource Plan, determined Memphis can save as much as $350 million to $400 million per year on MLGW’S wholesale electricity costs by switching suppliers.
Even in the face of potential costs to connect to these new sources, the savings are still more economic than the potential $1 billion that MLGW now pays to TVA each year and that threatens to increase in the future. Several polls of the citizens of Memphis have also concluded that there is broad support to move away from TVA if it will mean reducing the energy burden of high cost electricity.
We can choose MISO for a greener, cleaner, and lower-cost source of wholesale electricity. We can choose MISO for its reliability and for the flexibility to own and deploy our own environmentally friendly renewables and generation as part of our portfolio of wholesale electricity such as solar, wind, and other renewable sources that are low cost and do not damage the environment.
I have heard skeptics and TVA surrogates say of MISO, “if it is such a good thing, why isn’t somebody else doing it?” Well the truth is they are by the hundreds. It is time Memphis move into a new future that saves the city and its citizens money.
Herman Morris is the former President and CEO of MLGW, former Memphis City Attorney, and current advisor to Friends of the Earth.
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MALLARD FILLMORE
Several polls of the citizens of Memphis have also concluded that there is broad support to move away from TVA if it will mean reducing the energy burden.
Qur'an, As-saff, Surah 61:11-13
Have faith in Allah and His messenger, and strive in His way with your wealth and your lives. That is for your own good, for He will forgive you for your transgressions and admit you into graceful moments in the Gardens of bliss where rivers run through. That indeed is the greatest triumph. Deliver the glad tidings to the believers that Allah will bestow yet another blessing upon them, His succor and a speedy victory.
Talmud
Don't use the conduct of a fool as a precedent