Pennyrile Electric President & CEO Alan Gates brought a charge to Thursday’s Kiwanis Club of Hopkinsville meeting, explaining a number of key story lines and details about the region.
This included the late December 2022 rolling blackouts of west Kentucky and northwest Tennessee, the continuing build of fiber internet infrastructure in the nine-county service area, and the strengthening relationship between PECC and Hopkinsville Electric Services.
Gates told Kiwanians that those December dates still feel like “nails on a chalkboard” because of its logistical nightmare and ultimate customer dissatisfaction.
However, two things happened that were completely out of both PECC’s and its provider, the Tennessee Valley Authority, purview.
It was the first time in TVA’s 90-year-history it had experienced a winter storm of this power, this consistency and this size — eye-opening for all involved.
And it put pressure not just on TVA’s grid, but of all power producers south of the Ohio River. Power producers TVA would’ve purchased back up power from, but couldn’t.
Because the temperature dropped too quickly, Gates said it wasn’t power plants so much that were limited — but the instrumentation that measured power plant generation rates.
This caused a total loss of nearly 6,000 megawatts of power, and no neighbors capable to replace the loss.
Gates confirmed TVA’s efforts of expanding battery capacity and add to the southeast’s electricity profile are all part of the plan for better preparedness in the coming years.
However, Gates also wanted to dispel what’s been a rampant myth in the last six months.
Behind the PECC/HES and energynet collaboration, more than 150 miles of fiber internet per month keeps getting unspooled across Trigg, Christian, Todd, Lyon, Caldwell, Logan, Muhlenberg, Butler and Simpson counties.
The prudence of county government, local legislators and federal funding from the American Rescue Plan Act, Gates said, has locked in hundreds of contractors and supplies — edging out the network as monies matriculate.
Agreements with counties, he noted, saved lead times and kept a lot of business local.
One county that concerns Gates and his fellow leadership: Trigg. Most of the state grants being delivered from the Kentucky Infrastructure Authority are based on under-served vs. properly served communities.
Another major fact for PECC:
— Toting a five-year rotation on right-of-way, Gates noted that a “good year for rain and farmers” is also a “good year for trees growing in power lines.” Due to the amount of rain, and wind damage, the region has sustained, Gates noted the pruning really should occur every three years. But it’s not something he can “magically” change; PECC officials budget $4 million annually for limb removal, with the only return on investment coming from estimated damage prevention.
