No Rate Increase Planned, But TVA in the Red

Executives at the Tennessee Valley Authority say they haven’t planned to raise power rates anytime soon. That’s because natural gas and coal prices remain low., but TVA’s Chief Financial Officer says warm weather has wreaked havoc on the utility’s bottom line.

This summer’s heatwave means TVA is selling more electricity to power companies. In the last three months, the public utility racked up nearly 2.8 billion dollars in sales. That’s up four and a half percent from a year ago. Even so, Chief Financial Officer John Thomas says TVA is running in the red.

The hot weather we had in June wasn’t enough to make up for the warmest winter we had in 60 years. We’re predicting normal weather through the fourth quarter. So, I would anticipate that we would end the year with a net loss.

TVA’s loss for the year so far is about $290 million. The utility was running a loss at this point last year, but it was much lower—around $35 million.