The Peak Load Management Alliance (PLMA) announced that the Tennessee Valley Authority or TVA has become its newest member and has joined 40 other organizations who are already members of the Alliance.

In a release, PLMA Executive Director Elliot Boardman said, “Transforming the electricity grid into a smart grid requires the interaction of many different stakeholders.”

TVA employs an Integrated Resource Plan that supports TVA’s comprehensive mission of service to meet the electric power needs of its customers.

“Access to knowledge and broad-based education will facilitate the necessary merger of multiple components enabling us to act in concert. By joining PLMA, TVA is demonstrating its commitment to demand response as an integral tool of the smart grid by improving the reliability of the nation's power grid, positively impact power quality and effectively manage demand while further integrating renewable resources into the system,” Boardman added.

TVA has joined 10 other suppliers of electricity as a member of the Alliance which includes different types of organizations. PLMA encompasses members who are curtailment service providers, smart grid equipment suppliers, research organizations, trade associations, consulting organizations and others. All the PLMA members share a common interest with regards to Demand Response.

TVA will be hosting the fall conference of PLMA that is scheduled to take place from November 14-16, 2011 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. This conference will highlight the support of the PLMA for demand response.

Company sources at TVA added that it will encourage distribution companies to whom it supplies electricity to attend the conference in order to reveal latest developments in demand response. TVA has also arranged a field trip to its Raccoon Mountain pumped storage facility during the conference.

This plant functions like a large storage battery and at times of low demand, water is pumped from Nickajack Reservoir at the base of the mountain to the reservoir built at the top. It takes 28 hours to fill the upper reservoir. In cases of high demand water is released via a tunnel drilled through the center of the mountain which will in turn run generators installed in the mountain’s underground power plant.

In January 2010 the Peak Load Management Alliance and Utilimetrics, the smart utility association entered into a partnership to facilitate communications and information sharing. The groups will be coordinating collaborative efforts with educational, marketing and informational initiatives that promote power-grid reliability, improved operations and effective resource utilization.

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