Cookeville Council Approves New TVA Agreement

The Cookeville City Council has approved a new long-term agreement with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).

The 20-year deal comes with a 3.1-percent discount on the city’s wholesale rate. Electric Department Director Carl Haney the agreement also includes enhanced power supply flexibility.

“What that is, we’ve always had to purchase 100-percent of our power from TVA,” Haney said. “With solar and renewable becoming such a large item nowadays, they are agreeing to talk to us and help us if we want to start getting more into solar and use that for our power supply as well.”

Haney said the agreement also includes provisions for future rate increases.

“If they increase their rates more than 5-percent the first five years or 10-percent any five years after that, this allows for us to negotiate those and see if we can come to an agreement with them,” Haney said.

City Manager James Mills said the agreement would result in substantial savings for the city.

The city’s existing 20-year agreement became effective in December 1984. TVA amended the agreement to 10-years back in 2015.