TVA’s Brownsville plant gets updates to prepare for winter storms
BROWNSVILLE, Tenn. – The Tennessee Valley Authority plant in Brownsville is preparing its equipment for the dropping temperatures.
Following winter storm Elliot, the TVA has made a lot of updates to prevent freezing during storms, from windbreaks and servicing heaters to drying systems.
Since the storm, the TVA, as a whole, invested $123 million over the last year to improve reliability. In the coming year, another $120 million is set to be spent to complete that work.
“So we’ve added heat trays, insulation, and several enclosures around very sensitive instruments to make sure that doesn’t happen again,” said Kevin Payne, the plant manager.
The issue is not running the plant in cold weather, it’s getting the plant started.
The plant is supplemental depending on the needs of the power grid.
“We’ve been through a lot of cold winters in the past and so we’re pretty experienced. We’d already been doing a lot of work here, redoing some insulation. Every year we’d spend a little bit redoing areas that looked like they needed some repair. We had upgraded a lot of our heat trays already,” Payne said.
The Brownsville plant was built in 1999 and was purchased by the TVA in 2008.
Find more local news here.
