This WBIR story details the highly exorbitant electric utility bills in the City of Harriman, TN in Roane County.
It will only get worse if Harriman Utility Board (HUB) gets into the broadband business, scheduled for Summer 2025.
The City of Harriman Mayor is employed by HUB, the City of Harriman is reportedly considering backing HUB bonds to get into broadband/fiber.
Also the TN Journal recently published an article on State of Tennessee officials concerned with TVA rates and capacity. The article is below.
Power vacuum?
GOP leaders hammer on theme of waning electric capacity for state
Senate Finance Chair Bo Watson of Hixson went on an extensive rant last week about whether the Tennessee Valley Authority is keeping up with the state’s energy needs.
Other top Republican lawmakers have since echoed the sentiment in the context of challenges facing Tennessee in landing big economic development deals.
Stuart McWhorter, the commissioner of the Department of Economic and Community Development, said all Southeastern states are grappling with increased power demand but acknowledged that TVA is “a little unique” be-cause it is a public utility. The challenges become all the more acute when it comes to the electricity needs of “hyper-scalers” like Meta, Google, Apple and Elon Musk’s xAi, which has put a huge facility in Memphis.
TVA supplies a total of about 35 gigawatts to its seven state region, which includes most of Tennessee. The national demand for data centers currently stands at 50 gigawatts and is expected to grow to 300, McWhorter said, with each additional gigawatt costing more than $30 billion to deliver. While he said the state isn’t trying to land every data center project, it does want to go after related supply chain and advanced manufacturing projects.
McWhorter told the House Finance Committee that his agency received a $300 million supplemental budget appropriation to help land a big business in Tennessee in 2023. The deal didn’t go through, but the money was instead dedicated to another large project. But that one didn’t happen, either, said McWhorter. He didn’t give any details about the prospects, or say why the state missed out.
Watson said the state has “gotten very lazy about energy because TVA has had a monopoly of our energy system since the 30s.” But now the utility is reaching its limits, and the state needs to find ways to ensure its future supply, he said. That’s why Watson and others said they are embracing Gov. Bill Lee’s efforts to boost nuclear power.
