Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has selected SmartSynch to provide smart metering solution for a distributed renewable generation program called Generation Partners. TVA’s local power companies that distribute its energy offer this program to both commercial and residential end-use customers. TVA provides energy to power distributors and large industries and is the largest public power company in the nation.
Generation Partners encourages commercial and residential end-use customers by providing incentives to buy and commission eligible renewable energy systems such as wind, solar photovoltaic, small hydro-electric and biomass systems. The entire output from the renewable energy generation system is bought by TVA by paying the retail rate as well as any fuel cost adjustment. In addition, for solar power, the company pays a premium of 12 cents per kWh and 3 cents per kWh for all other renewable energy technologies.
Managed Services solution from SmartSynch will take care of the uploading, storage, reading and delivery of generation data for local power companies and TVA. The solution will be deployed efficiently by SmartSynch for the local power distributors through the usage of public wireless networks.
Stephen Johnston, SmartSynch’s chief executive officer, said that the Generation Partners program from TVA is beneficial for both the end-use customers as well as for local power companies and the company is pleased to play a supporting role for this program. Johnston further added without the smart grid solutions using public wireless networks, it would have been impossible to deploy this solution to all local power providers.