Fire on the Mountain - TVPPA...4 TVPPA NEWS JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017 Officers chairman Gregory D. Williams Appalachian EC, New Market, TN vice chairman Terry N. Kemp Starkville, MS, ES

Fire on the MountainSevier Co. ES faces long recovery from Gatlinburg blaze

WWW.TVPPA.COM | JAN/FEB 2017

Let’s face it...sometimes your software systems put up more of a fight than Mike Tyson on a bad day. They’re not functionally robust enough for your needs, they can’t integrate with your other programs, they can’t scale with company growth, you can’t customize anything and you need a Ph.D. to figure out how to use them. From the opening bell of your work day, you know you’re in for a battle trying to meet the needs of your utility.

Since 1938, utilities have relied on Central Service Association to take care of many of the tasks that eat up utility resources and beat up on utility staffs. With CSA, information technology is our business, leaving you the time to concentrate on your business. With ORBITTM, utility personnel take command of their workload, rather than having the workload in control.

CSA’s ORBITTM family is our line of easy-to-use, integrated, expandable and reliable software solutions. Each piece is designed for the way utilities work today - efficiently and effectively. Products in the ORBITTM solution include: Customer Management and Billing Dynamic Financial Management Work Management Meter Data Management and Analysis Business Portal with Mobile Service Orders Customer Portal Cashier Solutions

Combined with CSA’s other products and services, like UtiliSuite - our GIS suite, Internet services, employee benefits, professional services, disaster recovery, backup services, hardware sales and more, Central Service Association is THE choice for IT needs among utilities today. It’s time to knock out the stress and strain of information management. Unlike many of the challengers in the IT business, we know the fight. We’ve been in your corner for over 75 years providing service that is second to none. At CSA, we provide what it takes to win.

Central Service AssociationP.O. Box 3480Tupelo, MS 38803-3480Toll free 877-842-5962

Tired of fighting your IT?

www.csa1.com

We’re in your corner.

January/February 2017 Volume 68 · No. 1www.tvppa.com

COVER14 ‘Like A Fireball Rolling’

Not four months after taking over as general manager at Sevier Co., TN, ES, Allen Robbins saw a wildfire claim 14 lives in Gatlinburg and obliterate vast stretches of his utility’s service territory.

FEATURES18 Though Challenges Tempt, Austin Carroll Stands Down

Just days before his Jan. 31 retirement after 30 years at the helm of Hopkinsville, KY, ES, Austin Carroll sat down with TVPPA News for a wide-ranging Q & A.

20 Williams Eyes ‘Shared’ DSS Evaluations In 2017TVPPA Chairman Greg Williams found a lot to like about TVPPA’s first year at the wheel of the Distributed Solar Solutions (DSS) initiative, but that’s not to say that DSS is no longer a work in progress.

21 Warehouse Security: Because Stuff ‘Appeals To Bad Guys’Lenoir City, TN, UB’s Matt Fagiana and Johnson City, TN, PB’s Keith Swink offer steps, ranging from basic heightened awareness to pole-mounted cameras, utilities can take to protect the warehouses in which they store hardware worth millions.

22 EnergyRight Solutions For Youth Program Ahead Of ScheduleHalfway through its second academic year, the EnergyRight Solutions for Youth program is ahead of schedule with regard to TVPPA-member utility participation.

24 Embracing Solar, Rebranding On Tap At Johnson City PBThere’s a lot happening these days at Johnson City, TN, PB—the utility is not only entering the community-solar arena, but also becoming an energy authority.

TVPPA News is published bi-monthly by the Tennessee Valley Public Power Association, Inc. Member of the Society of National Association Publications. Advertising rates and data are available by contacting Tim Daugherty, TVPPA News, PO Box 6189, Chattanooga, TN 37401-6189; phone: 423.490.7930; or e-mail: [email protected]. Listed in SRDS, Sect. 39—Electrical. ISSN: 1547-5158. Opinions expressed in single articles do not necessarily reflect those of the association. For permission to reprint articles, write or call TVPPA.

Receiving extra issues? Please call and let us know: 423.756.6511 or email to [email protected].

about the cover:The Nov. 28, 2016, wildfire that devastated Gatlinburg, TN, threatened—but, thankfully, didn’t damage—Dollywood’s DreamMore Resort, where TVPPA had conducted its annual Utility Safety Conference just two months earlier. (Photo courtesy Bruce McCamish / Bruce McCamish Photography)

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Let’s face it...sometimes your software systems put up more of a fight than Mike Tyson on a bad day. They’re not functionally robust enough for your needs, they can’t integrate with your other programs, they can’t scale with company growth, you can’t customize anything and you need a Ph.D. to figure out how to use them. From the opening bell of your work day, you know you’re in for a battle trying to meet the needs of your utility.

Since 1938, utilities have relied on Central Service Association to take care of many of the tasks that eat up utility resources and beat up on utility staffs. With CSA, information technology is our business, leaving you the time to concentrate on your business. With ORBITTM, utility personnel take command of their workload, rather than having the workload in control.

CSA’s ORBITTM family is our line of easy-to-use, integrated, expandable and reliable software solutions. Each piece is designed for the way utilities work today - efficiently and effectively. Products in the ORBITTM solution include: Customer Management and Billing Dynamic Financial Management Work Management Meter Data Management and Analysis Business Portal with Mobile Service Orders Customer Portal Cashier Solutions

Combined with CSA’s other products and services, like UtiliSuite - our GIS suite, Internet services, employee benefits, professional services, disaster recovery, backup services, hardware sales and more, Central Service Association is THE choice for IT needs among utilities today. It’s time to knock out the stress and strain of information management. Unlike many of the challengers in the IT business, we know the fight. We’ve been in your corner for over 75 years providing service that is second to none. At CSA, we provide what it takes to win.

Central Service AssociationP.O. Box 3480Tupelo, MS 38803-3480Toll free 877-842-5962

Tired of fighting your IT?

www.csa1.com

We’re in your corner.

e-mail/ēmāl/nounElectronic mail, correspondence, communication, message(s), mail, memo(s), letter(s)

DID YOU NOTICE THE ADDRESS LABEL on the cover of this edition of TVPPA News magazine? We imprinted your email address!

That is, IF we have one. With the importance of email, it’s imperative that we have your email address.

If you didn’t see your email on the cover, scan the QR code or visit www.tvppa.com, click “Communications” and follow the link from there. It’s easy and only takes a moment to make sure you’re receiving all the information we are trying to send you.

3TVPPA NEWS JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017

“ASK TVPPA” is a regular feature TVPPA News magazine. Got a question for TVPPA’s Chattanooga, TN-based staff? Just e-mail TVPPA NEWS Editor Bob Gary Jr. at [email protected]

QUESTION: I’m seeing TVPPA Education & Training courses at conferences . . . have E&T and Conferences merged?ANSWER, from TVPPA Conferences Manager Tim Daugherty: No. E&T and Conferences are still sepa-rate services at TVPPA, but we’ve realized the value in leveraging the added opportunity E&T can bring and the economy of providing a starting point, perhaps, for a certificate program at a conference.

We launched this idea at the Feb. 9-10 Legal Conference with a ‘Learn-ing to Speak LPC’ pre-conference class. Next up is ‘Workorder, Inven-tory & Plant,’ a day-long pre-con set for April 19 at the Music City Sheraton in Nashville, TN, immediately ahead of the Utility Purchasing & Materials

Management Conference.

E&T and Confer-ences share a key strategy—provide excellent training and networking oppor-tunities to TVPPA members. This fits well within that goal.

As a ‘one-off,’ or as part of a complete certificate program, this provides another opportunity to learn more about our industry and key functions members need to do their jobs better.

The class can usually be offered at a reduced rate—this, along with cutting the additional travel period, makes it valuable for the utility, too. One thing folks will need to remember is that pre-con E&T offerings have separate registrations; registering for the conference doesn’t automatically get you in the pre-con, so please take care to take that extra step.

— BOB GARY, JR./EDITOR

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The next E&T pre-conference class is ‘Workorder, Inventory & Plant,’ April 19, at the Sheraton Music City in Nashville TN


Officers chairmanGregory D. WilliamsAppalachian EC, New Market, TN

vice chairmanTerry N. KempStarkville, MS, ES

secretary-treasurer

Jerry Collins, Jr.Memphis, TN, LG&W

Directors Mike AllmandRipley, TN, Power & Light R. Michael BrowderBristol Tennessee Essential ServicesElden ChumleyAlbertville, AL, MUB James B. CoodeCumberland EMC, Clarksville, TN Mark O. IversonBowling Green, KY, MUMarty IvyMayfield, KY, E&WSChris JonesMiddle Tennessee EMCMurfreesboro, TN Wes KelleyColumbia, TN, P&WSLynn MillsLoudon, TN, Utilities

Jeff NewmanForked Deer EC, Halls, TN Ronny RowlandPrentiss Co. EPA, Booneville, MS Mike SimpsonSand Mountain EC, Rainsville, ALDavid SmartWest Kentucky RECC, Mayfield, KY Joseph Thacker IIIMountain EC, Mountain City, TNKathryn D. WestNorth Georgia EMC, Dalton, GA

PublisherJack [email protected]

Communications DirectorPhillip [email protected]

Publications/Marketing ManagerTim [email protected]

EditorBob Gary [email protected]

Communications SpecialistCourtney [email protected]

Editor’s NoteI’m happy to cede this space for a moment to Phillip Burgess, TVPPA’s Government Relations/Communica-tions/Conferences director:

Please allow me to introduce a relatively new name and face to the readers of TVPPA News.

I say relatively new because chances are you’ve seen Elizabeth Whitney’s name and face a few times already.

Elizabeth is TVPPA’s new Wash-ington Representative, and she will be working alongside me as we rep-

resent public power’s interests in our nation’s capital.She has more than a dozen years’ experience in and

around Capitol Hill, the last five-and-a-half spent at Morgan Meguire working directly for Deborah Sliz, who retired at the end of last year and closed that firm.

Knowing your way around Washington is a good thing. The intricacies of government and federal policy aren’t for the faint of heart and it’s vital to have a road map.

And while Elizabeth isn’t a native of the Tennes-see Valley, she is very familiar with these parts. Prior to joining Morgan Meguire, she was the senior legislative assistance to Rep. Bart Gordon, D-TN, who was then chairman of the House Science Committee and a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Elizabeth’s considerable talents will help TVPPA as we serve as an advocate of our membership’s interests with the public, in the political process and with TVA. This vital task was one of the reasons TVPPA was organized in 1946, and it is more important today than ever.

Elizabeth holds a B.A. in Communication from Muhlenberg College, an M.A. in Political Management from George Washington University and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center.

Look for her column elsewhere in this edition of TVPPA News.

PhilliP Burgess | Communications Director

Departments4 Ask TVPPA

6 Thinking Back On 40 Years Of ‘Unprecedented’ Changes

Comments&Observations

8 Action In 115th Congress One Of D.C.’s Few Certainties

Washington Report

10 TVPPA Members Should Note FCC Request For Comment

Legal

12 To Protect Your Cyber Self, Tech Up, Educate, Insure

Risk Management

26 Communications Group Switches On ‘One Light’ Campaign

Second Reference

27 1967 – Cumberland EMC’s Lisenbee To Vietnam

TVPPA Timeline

29 TVPPA CEO Jack Simmons Announces Retirement

Names&News

34 Advertiser Index

#tvppanews

www.tvppa.com

In the next issue . . .

TVPPA News previews the 71st Annual Conference, which is set for May 22-24 in Savannah, GA.


As I write, I note that it’s now been more than 40 years—Jan. 17, 1977, to be precise—since I started my

public-power career.I’ve witnessed “unprecedented”

changes during those 40 years. In 1977, coal was a primary fuel for generat-ing electricity. The EPA was focused on reducing sulfur dioxide and particulate matter emissions from coal-fired plants.

Traditional environmental compli-ance methods included 1000-foot tall smokestacks to disperse emissions high in the atmosphere. This would avoid violating ambient air quality health stan-dards at ground level.

Based on results of regional and global modeling of the dispersion of these two primary pollutants, EPA soon implemented constant emission limita-tion standards, measured at the stack output on generating sources. This ended tall stacks and the “dilution of pollution” compliance techniques.

The result was higher costs and the evolution of a new industry of

pollution-abatement equipment like high-efficiency precipitators, bag-houses, and scrubbers. Since then, EPA has broadened its focus to include other pol-lutants that are not so easy, and much more expensive, to remove from the com-bustion process. And now, with the drive to eliminate carbon dioxide emissions – the same gas we all exhale as we breathe – the future of coal-fired generation looks pretty bleak.

Silver LiningAt the same time, nuclear power was taking a prominent place in power supply. TVA had originally planned 17 nuclear units totaling nearly 20,000 MW. Coincident with those plans, economic conditions changed, load growth declined, and TVA eventually cancelled or delayed 11 of those units.

TVA’s current debt reflects residual fallout from those events. TVA ultimately and recently completed their seventh unit by finishing Watts Bar Unit 2.

However, there was a silver lining to the abbreviated nuclear program. To meet the delivery requirements of all that planned nuclear capacity and load growth, TVA built one of the most robust transmission systems in the United States.

That transmission system not only ensured continued reliability for the then-160 power distributors in the Valley, but it allowed TVA to hold a prominent place in evolution of markets in the eastern interconnection following trans-mission deregulation in the far-reaching Energy Policy Act of 1992.

That year, for the first time ever, gen-erators of electricity and consumers of electricity could establish contractual relationships regardless of service-terri-tory location, and transmission owners in between were required to provide “wheeling services” for a fee.

More ChangesBecause the Eisenhower administra-tion wouldn’t allow TVA to sell power outside the Valley in 1959, TVPPA and its members agreed with TVA that it would be unfair to allow outsiders to sell power inside the Valley. As a result, Section 212(j) of the EPACT92, known as the Anti-Cherry Picking Provision, exempted TVA from having to allow transmission service to customers inside the Valley. TVA does, however, transmit power for a fee across the Valley for consumption by others.

Following deregulation, organized markets for wholesale power developed. Independent Power Producers emerged. Natural gas became the fuel of choice. Fungible structured products evolved for capacity, energy, and transmission service, and also for reserves, load fol-lowing, demand response, and other ancillary services.

Structuring also occurred around standard electricity products delivered over specific hours and, more specifically, around liquidated damages for non-delivery. Counterparty-creditworthiness became the first order of the day, and many market players were squeezed out of business because of exposure to vola-tility risks in the new markets.

Trading floors in Houston and New York, rather than utility-system control centers, became the market makers. Mergers and acquisitions were common-place, and Independent System Operators and Regional Transmission Organiza-tions led to today’s massive aggregated markets like PJM and MISO.

Just A WinkAs we roll into the next 40 years, the new players are Internet-based, big-data corporations; the “Internet of things” and an army of independent, non-utility developers of

by Jack simmons | President & CEOCOMMENTS & OBSERVATIONS

TENNESSEE VALLEY PUBLIC POWER ASSOCIATION, INC.The Tennessee Valley Public Power Association, a nonprofit regional service organization with headquarters at 1206 Broad Street, Chattanooga, TN 37402, represents the consumer-owned utilities in the Tennessee Valley Authority service area. These 105 municipal and 49 rural electric cooperatives distribute electricity to 9 million residents in Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.

Thinking Back On 40 YearsOf ‘Unprecedented Changes’

Much of what we consider unique or unparalleled . . . isn’t

(Continued on page 32)

TVPPA NEWS JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017

6

WASHINGTON REPORT

After public sentiment for change in Washington prevailed in November, the coming year

promises exactly that—dramatic change in policy direction and in political discourse, with a heavy dose of uncertainty to boot.

January’s inauguration ushered in not just a new administration, but a new political reality with the ascen-sion of Donald Trump to the Presidency. A person with little taste for political norms and, at times, open contempt for a government he saw as incompetent and corrupt, President Trump embod-ies a decision-making style that remains unpredictable to most.

That may change too, as the new Chief Executive settles in to his role and the structures and pace of democratic policy-making temper his approach. One thing that is clear is that despite conflicts and questions, the alignment of Repub-lican power in Congress and the White House will foster significant activity in the 115th Congress.

That means TVPPA members will need to be on high alert to weigh in on fast-moving and often-changing policy dialogues.

TVA Board: Long Wait?The first order of business will be Senate confirmation of the new President’s cabinet and political appointees. The process may highlight simmering tensions concerning not only individual nominees’ positions and alignment with the President-elect, but also potential conflicts of interest and Russian influence.

The political theater may not be quite as spectacular with respect to nominees for agencies of interest to the electric sector, however, and may provide opportunities to get key policy questions answered by former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the nominee for Energy secretary; Interior nominee Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-MT; and Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, tapped to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

A bigger question for TVPPA mem-bers, of course, is who the President might nominate to serve on the TVA Board—and when. The terms of Mike McWherter, Peter Mahurin and Chair-man Joe Ritch lapsed at the end of 2016, and there is no sign that the incoming administration intends to turn its atten-tion to those spots before other Executive Branch positions are filled.

Further, two additional TVA board members’ terms will end in the first half of the year, creating the opportunity for President Trump appointees to secure a majority position. Given the appetite for change espoused by the new admin-istration, a Trump-selected board could decide to take the agency in a new direc-tion, or clash with its CEO, Bill Johnson.

A more concerning possibility is that the glut of other nominations leaves the

TVA board without a quorum to do busi-ness. The uncertainty is unhelpful for local power companies, industrial cus-tomers, and the Valley as a whole.

It underscores concerns that a Trump administration could ask questions about the value of TVA and whether it should be sold or reformed—just when customers had won a hard-fought battle to dissuade the Obama administration of just that.

Bonds At RiskWhen it comes to policymaking, repeal of health-care legislation has taken an early lead. However, the House is also more likely to move on a long-awaited overhaul of the tax code than any other time in the past decade or more. Republican members of the Ways and Means Committee met in December to map out plans to pass a reform bill using

“reconciliation” procedures, which allow major legislation to pass quickly, with a simple majority in the Senate.

The framework for such a bill is likely to come from the blueprint released by Ways and Means Chair Kevin Brady, R-TX, and Speaker Paul Ryan, R-WI, in June 2016. That draft is short on specifics, but public-power advocates have drawn strong inferences that the tax exemp-tion for municipal bonds is likely to be repealed or modified to raise revenue for the overhaul. Members and staff close to the negotiations confirm that municipal bonds are very much at risk.

Although TVPPA and others in public power have spent years educating mem-bers of Congress on the importance of municipal bonds, more outreach will be needed now that tax reform is on a fast track. If municipal bonds are included as revenue raisers in initial drafts, it will require Herculean efforts to remove the provisions and titanic pressure to sink a final bill that includes them.

Action In 115th Congress One Of D.C.’s Few Certainties

TVA board makeup, tax-free bonds, regs among hot topics

Elizabeth K. Whitney, managing principal at Meguire Whitney LLC, is TVPPA’s Washington representative.

by elizaBeth k. Whitney | Washington Representative


WASHINGTON REPORT

Regulatory U-Turn; Whiplash?Congress and the newly-installed Trump administration will also focus early efforts on undoing Obama-era regulations. In the first two weeks of the 115th Congress, the House passed legislation to repeal multiple rules from the last six months of the Obama admin-istration in one fell swoop. A December 2016 rule dramatically expanding eligibility for overtime pay is likely to be in the wreckage.

Most of the regulations of greatest interest to TVPPA are older than that, however, and will need to be revisited through different means. Rules cur-rently being challenged in the courts, such as the “Waters of the U.S.” rule and the Clean Power Plan, may be more dif-ficult to undo and could land the Trump administration back in court, facing a different set of challengers.

Despite the complicated legal status, the outcome for those two rules is clear—neither will go forward as designed. That may provide relief for many utili-ties, particularly those concerned about new permitting requirements under the “Waters of the U.S.” rule. The Trump administration is expected to be able to withdraw that rule and reconsider it.

The demise of the Clean Power Plan, however, will impact states differently depending on their existing resource inventory and political response to the rule. Further, there remain significant questions about how the Trump admin-istration could proceed, and whether it would try to roll back the Endangerment Finding that, under the Clean Air Act, compels regulation of carbon dioxide.

Will Smoke Clear For Other Items?With a jam-packed calendar in the first part of the year, it is not clear if or when Congress could move on other priorities, such as re-starting work on an energy bill along the lines of the one that died at the end of session in 2016.

While the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will be focused on nominations, the House Energy and Commerce Committee is expected to devote significant attention to replacing the Affordable Care Act.

Those distractions may make action on an omnibus bill difficult, although it

may be possible for smaller, non-contro-versial pieces to move individually. It is also not clear whether there is appetite or capacity in Congress to take on the major infrastructure bill President Trump has touted, especially after cost estimates raised concerns among conservatives.

Bright SpotsThe change in administration holds significant promise for energy policy related to nuclear power, however. The Trump administration appears poised to continue the Obama administration’s

support for one critical energy area—small modular reactors (SMRs). A memo from the transition team to DOE asked several questions about how the new administration can support SMRs.

That bodes well for the NuScale SMR project. TVA has shown serious interest in preparing its Clinch River site for an SMR, and the NuScale model submitted a formal application to the Nuclear Regula-tory Commission on Jan. 12, marking a major milestone in the development of the technology.

There is also (Continued on page 33)

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TVPPA Members Should NoteFCC Request For Comment

FCC looking for feedback on wireless siting policies

On Dec. 22, 2016, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) invited comment on

potential regulatory steps that it could take to facilitate the deployment of next-generation or “5G” wireless facilities.

While the focus of the regulatory proceeding is on wireless facility siting applications and on local government franchising and similar requirements that relate to obtaining access to the public rights-of-way, the proceeding may potentially implicate issues of interest or concern to TVPPA-member systems. Per-haps more importantly, the proceeding signals a coming wave of wireless facil-ity installations that could potentially involve local power company poles, sub-station properties and other facilities.

These potential deployments could contribute to the expansion of broadband access and the availability of additional broadband services. At the same time, these new installations could raise additional challenges for local franchise authorities as well as infrastructure providers.

In many respects, this small cell and distributed antenna system infrastruc-ture functions like a miniature version of a traditional cell tower. The equipment is much smaller, however, than a traditional cell site, and the antennas can be located much closer to the ground.

The equipment can, for example, be located on street lights and utility poles and on buildings. In its Dec. 22 request for comment, the FCC described the infrastructure this way:

“Small cells are low-powered wireless base stations that function like traditional cell sites in a mobile wireless network but, typically, cover targeted indoor or localized outdoor areas ranging in size from homes and offices to stadiums, shopping malls, hospitals, and metropoli-tan outdoor spaces.

“DAS networks use numerous anten-nas (DAS nodes), similar in size to small cells that are connected to and controlled by a central hub. Antennas and associ-ated equipment deployed at each small cell site or DAS node are physically much smaller than those at a macrocell site and do not require the same elevation; therefore, they can be placed on light stanchions, utility poles, building walls and rooftops, and other small structures either on private property or in the public rights of way without creating the visual and physical impacts of macrocell towers.

“Illustrative examples of such small facility deployments may be viewed at https://www.fcc.gov/file/3813/download. Typically, the vast majority of outdoor DAS networks and most indoor DAS sys-tems deployed in large structures involve ten, fifty, or even more DAS nodes. Out-door DAS networks cover areas ranging from several blocks, to whole neighbor-hoods, to entire cities.”

Rapid Growth; MobilitieThe FCC expects rapid growth in the

number of small cell deployments. The FCC cited a recent S&P Global Market Intelligence report estimating between 100,000 and 150,000 small cells will be constructed by the end of 2018.

According to the FCC, that same report estimated small cell deployments of approximately 455,000 by 2020, and nearly 800,000 by 2026. Those numbers will likely dwarf the number of tradi-tional cell tower sites in the country today.

In its request for comments, the FCC has focused primarily on local govern-ment’s review of siting applications. The FCC identified three primary potential issues to address in its review of the request for declaratory ruling:

■ The extent to which local government practices actually “prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting” the provi-sion of personal wireless services or other telecommunications services in violation of Sections 253(a) and 332(c)(7) of the federal Communications Act;

■ Whether the FCC needs to address a revised “reasonable period of time” for reviewing siting applications for small cell facilities; and

■ Whether and how the FCC should interpret Section 253(c) of the federal Communications Act for the purpose of ensuring that fees imposed on pro-viders using rights-of-way represent fair and reasonable compensation on a competitive neutral and nondis-criminatory basis.

The FCC request for comments was in response to a Petition for Declaratory Ruling that Mobilitie, LLC filed with the FCC on Nov. 15, 2016. According to its website, Mobilitie is a global provider of wireless solutions for wireless com-munications

LEGALby mark smith | Assistant General Counsel

(Continued on page 33)

Mark Smith is assistant general counsel for TVPPA and a member of Miller & Martin PLLC.


leidos.com

Activate Tomorrow, Today.

Alleviate operating limitations.Optimize system design and performance.

Leidos collaborates with utility staff to establish a long-term

vision that addresses future requirements and alleviates

operating deficiencies. That vision is made real through

implementation plans that identify and prioritize technologies

and projects to improve and optimize system design,

protection, and performance while considering implications

on staff, budgeting, and regulatory requirements.

To Protect Your Cyber-Self,Tech Up, Educate, Insure

Cyber/privacy liability coverage increasingly popular

RISK MANAGEMENT

It seems that every week there’s something in the news about a cyber hack/attack on some company or

organization—typically, though not always, for monetary gain.

The activities of cyber criminals seem to have become more frequent and more costly, even as technology users attempt to devise ever more sophisticated fire-walls and other means of preventing hacks into their systems. Even our politi-cal infrastructure has been in play, as cyber enthusiasts hacked the Democratic National Committee and allegedly tried to alter voting results in our Presidential election.

Since it’s a given that technology is an integral part of everyday business for virtually everyone, what’s an organiza-tion to do? First of all, your IT staff and/or consultants should protect your tech-nology platforms to as great an extent as possible; unfortunately, there seem to be fewer and fewer foolproof systems, as the offensive hackers always seem to be a step ahead of the defenders.

Secondly, educate your staff about the importance of cyber security, and the things your employees should (and should not) do to minimize the impact of hacking in their daily computer activi-ties; try though we might to educate our workforce, there always seems to be that one person who forgets to safeguard his computer or opens an attachment from an unknown or suspicious sender.

Finally, purchase cyber/privacy liability insurance to provide coverage in the event your organization falls victim to an attack. There is a large and grow-ing number of insurers that sell such coverage.

Hope ≠ StrategyPolicy conditions and exclusions vary greatly and continue to evolve. Here are some of the coverages to look for:

■ Cyber liability for third-party finan-cial loss arising directly from a hacking attack or virus emanating from or passing through your com-puter system or a cloud computing provider’s system.

■ Privacy liability that pays costs and expenses related to a security breach resulting in:

• An actual or suspected breach of any personally identifiable information;

• Your failure to adequately warn affected individuals or provide a timely breach notification;

• A breach of any rights of confidentiality;

• A breach of any part of your website’s privacy statement;

• A breach of any written contract between you and a third party gov-erning the processing and storing of credit card information;

• A breach of your data or data for

which you are responsible that is located on a cloud computing pro-vider’s system.

■ System damage and system business interruption

■ Consequential reputational harm■ Regulatory actions and investigations■ Privacy-breach-notification costs■ Cyber threats and extortion.■ Multimedia liability and advertising

liability for loss arising out of media content or user generated content for defamation, intellectual property rights infringement, invasion of pri-vacy rights, and negligent acts, errors, omissions, advice, misstatements, or misrepresentation.

Does your cyber/privacy liability insurance policy cover claims arising from each of these areas? Do you have a cyber/privacy liability insurance policy? If not, you should reconsider.

The world is only becoming more complex from a technology standpoint, and the sophistication of hackers only continues to increase. Relying on defen-sive IT tactics alone to prevent an incident is a hope, not a strategy. You also should proactively purchase adequate insurance coverage before you experience a cyber incident.

by anthony J. salvatore

Anthony J. Salvatore, area senior vice

president for Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., is program manager for TVPPA's Distributors Insurance Co. Visit DIC on the Web at www. distributors-insurance.com.

FLASH POINTS » Businesses and individuals today are under

the constant threat of getting hacked. » You can beef up your IT operation and edu-

cate your employees, but relying on those measures alone isn’t enough.

» Conditions and exclusions are constantly evolving, but cyber/privacy coverage is growing in popularity.

QUESTIONS? CONCERNS? Please contact:Tony Salvatore | [email protected] Zimmerman | [email protected]


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COVER STORY

BY BOB GARY, JR. | EDITOR

THE PHRASE BAPTISM BY FIRE GETS THROWN AROUND A LOT, BUT ALLEN ROBBINS REALLY KIND OF ENDURED ONE.

Not four months after taking over as general manager at Sevier Co., TN, ES, Robbins saw a wildfire claim 14 lives in Gatlinburg, TN, and obliterate vast stretches of his utility’s service territory.

“It goes without saying that the loss of life is tragic,” Robbins said. “Lots of people lost homes, but we were blessed in that none of our employees was hurt or sustained property damage.”

The fire that devastated Gatlin-burg took place Nov. 28, but actually started five days earlier; authorities have charged two juveniles with setting a fire at Chimney Tops, a 4,700-foot peak in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

“When I went to work Monday [the 28th], downtown Sevierville was very smoky,” Robbins said. “Chimney Tops had been burning for five days, but was pretty well contained.”

That changed, though, when hurri-cane-force winds—Robbins said one gust was clocked at 110 miles per hour—thrust the fire down from Chimney Tops toward Gatlinburg.

“Gatlinburg started voluntary evacu-ations at about lunchtime, and that’s when we put our crews on point,” Rob-bins said.

GATLINBURG WILDFIREDEVASTATES SEVIER CO. ESSERVICE TERRITORY


“Our linemen reported that when they looked toward Chimney Tops, it looked like a fireball rolling out of the park . . . and embers the size of bricks were flying across the [Gatlinburg] Parkway,” he said.

‘Just Gone’Robbins said the situation deteriorated throughout the day and “really got dire” at dinnertime. Finally, just before midnight, everything changed.

“The fire had reached the back side of Dollywood, and that’s when the wind shifted and it started to rain,” he said. “That’s pretty much what saved Dolly-wood and the rest of Pigeon Forge.”

Though Sevier Co. ES workers escaped injury and property damage, the fire dealt the utility’s system a hay-maker—$4.5 million in all, Robbins said, and a loss of some 3,000 customer accounts.

“Those are just gone,” he said. “From a revenue perspective, that’s $2.8 to $3.2 million per year.

“We’re thinking that it’ll take five years to get back to where we were,” he said. “Our area was blessed with phe-nomenal growth in the late 1990s into the 2000s, so our financial position is such that we’ll be okay—but I wouldn’t want to have to absorb too many of these blows.”

Robbins estimated that as many as 160 linemen and tree-trimmers were in action at any one time during the fire. Much of that help came from Clinton, TN, UB; Knoxville, TN, UB; Lenoir City, TN, UB; Cleveland, TN, Utilities and Chatta-nooga-based Service Electric.

“And more of our neighbors called to say they were on point and ready to go,” he said. “It was humbling. I cannot say enough about our folks and those who came to help—they went above and beyond in tough situations, and there were no injuries.” >>>

Stanley Stiles of Sevier Co., TN, ES shot this photo through a windshield as the Gatlinburg fire raged on the night of Nov. 28, 2016.


COVER STORY

‘VERY BLESSED’Robbins also got a call that harrowing night from South Carolina, to which Sevier Co. ES had sent help last fall after Hurricane Matthew. Santee Cooper wanted to let Robbins know that they had crews ready to come north and return the favor.

“I told them I appreciated it, but that we had plenty of help—and besides, I’m not going to call those guys up from the coast until I can see them work in a snow-storm,” Robbins quipped.

With the smoke finally cleared and cleanup just about complete, Robbins and his staff analyzed the util-ity’s response to the fire—and liked what they found.

“When we evaluated our protocols, we didn’t find anything we felt we needed to change,” he said. “Every-thing we have in our emergency-response plan worked as it should have.”

And the popular mountain destination served by Sevier Co. ES is slowly getting back to what Robbins called a “new normal.”

“Christmas was excellent in Gatlinburg, and they had a great New Year’s event as well,” he said. “So much help has come from not only across the country, but around the world—we’ve gotten help from people in Europe and Canada who’ve been here and loved it.

“There are warehouses from here to Knoxville that are full of clothes and food . . . everything you could imagine,” Robbins said. “We’re just very blessed.”


Little remained of Gatlinburg, TN’s Baskins Creek area after the Nov. 28, 2016, wildfire (all photos courtesy Sevier Co., TN, ES)


Austin Carroll was just 36 when he was hired in 1986 to succeed Howell Hightower as general manager at Hopkinsville, KY, ES.

As would anyone in his position, Carroll met with his prede-cessor shortly before taking office.

“He’d been there for 26 years and it sounded like he’d been there forever,” said Carroll, who retired in January having outlasted Hightower by four years. Carroll retired as only the third chief executive—and the longest-serving—in the utility’s 74-year history.

Shortly before giving way to his successor, Jeff Hurd, Carroll sat down with TVPPA News magazine:

TVPPA NEWS: Your retirement’s been whispered about for a while. What made now the right time?AUSTIN CARROLL: I’ve been in this business for 41 years now, so it’s time to do something else. [Wife] Angela and I have a farm here in Kentucky and another in Tennessee—near Hohenwald, on the Buffalo River. We’ve got alpacas there; they keep you busy, and Angela needs a little more help with that.TVPPA NEWS: Are you 100-percent done, or might you find

something to do in public power?CARROLL: I’m not going to go to a full-time job, but I might like to keep a hand in the public-power business . . . I know and enjoy so many people in the business that it might be hard to give that up. Maybe consulting of some sort, something I could do one or two days a week.TVPPA NEWS: Tell the Valley about your successor, Jeff Hurd.CARROLL: Jeff’s a leader. He’s got a great background with two different companies [Hopkinsville ES and Pennyrile RECC] and is a good, highly moral person, very well-respected by our

employees and board.Our board also interviewed Rich-

ard Shaw, our telecom manager and an excellent candidate. The board had to make a choice, but it speaks to the camaraderie and culture we have here that they’d talked before the process started and agreed that whoever didn’t get the job would fully support whoever did. They’ll be a very good team.TVPPA NEWS: You mentioned the culture at HES; you made some pretty dramatic changes early in your run in that regard.CARROLL: I knew I wanted to change the culture; linemen were in a separate location and didn’t know the office staff very well. We built a new, single office and operations building in 1989 because I wanted to put the organization together in one place. I thought we could be more effective that way, as opposed to having what were really two separate organiza-tions. Now I think we have a very good, family-like culture.TVPPA NEWS: Of what are you most proud?CARROLL: I’d have to say our telecom system is the thing people really appreciate about what we do. We kind of stepped up and brought broadband to Hopkinsville when nobody else was. When power first came to rural areas, it was very much appreciated because it made life a lot easier. It’s the same way with telecom.

And we’ve got a tremendous safety record here—we’ve got almost 5,000 days without a lost-time accident, but I’ll be gone by the time we actually hit that mark.

Another thing I’m really proud of is our involvement with the United Way, which touches so many other charitable

Though Challenges Tempt,Austin Carroll Stands Down ‘It’s an exciting time . . . but we don’t live forever’

FEATUREby BOB GARY JR. | Editor

THE CARROLL FILE■ Austin Carroll stepped down in

January 2017 after 30 years as chief executive at Hopkinsville, KY, ES.

■ A Hohenwald, TN, native, Carroll earned an undergraduate degree at Middle Tennessee State University and an MBA at the University of Tennessee.

■ Carroll put in 13 years at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Ten-nessee Valley Authority before joining Hopkinsville ES in 1986.

■ Carroll has served as a board member and president of his statewide utility association, as APPA’s chair-elect and as chair-man of Distributors Insurance Co., TVPPA’s wholly owned insurance subsidiary.

■ His successor at Hopkinsville ES is Jeff Hurd, who joined the utility in 2007 after 17 years at nearby Pennyrile RECC.

Austin Carroll, just retired after 30 years as general manager at Hopkinsville, KY, ES, has been active on that city’s Trail of Tears Commission for the past decade and plans to remain so after leaving the utility.


agencies and people in our com-munity. We’re known in our community for our support of United Way.TVPPA NEWS: You put in about eight years as a board member for Distributors Insurance Co., including three as chairman. DIC always seemed like a high priority for you.CARROLL: In serving our customers at the local utility, we

need to do what’s best for them. I always felt DIC was the best value for our systems and, therefore, the best value for our customers. I believed that.

It’s great, customized coverage for our industry at very reasonable prices. I always wanted to bring additional TVPPA members into the DIC fold, and we landed a few addi-tional systems, but, more importantly, we put more emphasis on safety programs and initi-ated new incentives for systems to work safely.

We’ve got almost 5,000 days without a lost-time accident. I can tell you that safety pays dividends—not only in terms of the bottom line, but in terms of being the best thing for our workers, their families and, in turn, our customers.TVPPA NEWS: As you reached retirement, did you think about anything you might have done differently?CARROLL: I don’t have a lot of regrets. You may not have been quite as successful with a particular objective, but I don’t look back at things I might have done better. It’s an exciting time in the power industry, with all the challenges coming down the pike, but we don’t live forever. You can’t do it all.TVPPA NEWS: You mentioned the multiple challenges faced by our industry—as you assess those challenges, are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future?CARROLL: One way or another, our customers are going to be served. We’re still the ones best-suited to supply the best service possible, but it might be in a way that’s a little different than what we’re used to.

We’ve put a solar array next to our build-ing—not because we’re getting our doors broken down to do solar, but it will come. We want to position ourselves as the authority on solar in Hopkinsville. If you’re our customer, and your intent is to put solar in, we want to help you do that, but in the most manageable way for the customer and HES. I want those

customers to come to us as the trusted resource.TVPPA NEWS: So, what advice might you offer to your now-former peers and their successors?CARROLL: Embrace change. Learn how to cope. The greatest challenge we face is third-party suppliers coming in and getting between us and our customers. You may have to serve your customers a different way, but somebody’s going to do that, and right now we’re in the best, most advantageous spot. We need to be prepared to grab that ring.

www.tvppa.com

FEATURE

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Greg Williams found a lot to like about TVPPA’s first year at the wheel of the Distributed Solar

Solutions (DSS) initiative.“One good thing is that it motivated

solar developers to work directly with LPCs [local power companies] rather than doing their own thing,” TVPPA’s chair-man said. “The program motivated those developers to become strategic partners.

“And TVA was willing and able to set aside 10 megawatts, but expanded that to 16 because we got more interest than anticipated, which is a good thing,” he added.

But that’s not to say DSS is no longer a work in progress. It most certainly is, Williams said, and at least one area merits particular attention.

“The applicant evaluation process was retained by TVA,” he said. “That should have been shared with us, and that’s where we’re migrating,” he said.

Formerly known as the Solar Solu-tions Initiative program, DSS was renamed a year ago. Under the program’s terms, solar developers who want to site projects in the TVPPA/TVA foot-print must work with and through the appropriate TVPPA-member utility. Individual projects must be directed

by TVPPA-member utilities and have demonstrable value to those utilities and their customers or members.

Williams, the executive vice president and general manager at Appalachian EC, New Market, TN, called 2016 “kind of a test bed” for the TVPPA-controlled project and hailed it as a “learning experience.”

“This is the first time we’ve actually participated in structuring a program for ourselves,” he said. “We learned a lot, and TVA did, too.

“What people have to remember is that [DSS] is the poster child for what we hope to do in terms of moving things closer to the customers,” he said.

‘Toes In The Water’Williams said the level of TVPPA-member utility interest in 2016 wasn’t what he’d hoped, but added that he’s “seeing the pendulum swing” the other way of late. TVPPA Communications Director Phillip Burgess and TVA staff conducted three late-2016 webinars on DSS; two of those, presented specifi-cally for TVPPA-member utilities,

drew more than 100 participants. More than 200 individuals registered for a third webinar, aimed for DSS stakeholders-at-large.

“Folks are ready to put their toes in the water and do something

in this space,” Williams said, adding that reduction of the individual-project size from 5 megawatts to 2 megawatts and shifting the application timetable to March 1-15 are significant changes for 2017.

“The March deadline means that developers have more time to get with the utilities and really put programs together,” he said, “and reducing the

[project] size to 2 megawatts allows more participation.”

Even so, Williams said, there remains heavy lifting to do on the application-evaluation front.

“My opinion is that we’ll push pretty heavily on that,” he said, “but I think TVA will be able to accept that envi-ronment as long as our people have no conflicts in that space.

“Who better to evaluate a project than one who understands distribution systems? It’s okay to have your peers evaluate you—as long as you’re not par-ticipating,” he said.

At bottom, Williams said, DSS rep-resents a “small component of a much bigger question” for TVPPA, its member utilities and TVA.

“Look at Walmart,” he said. “We’re going to have big loads deciding to go renewable. So do you lean toward being-service oriented, or do you go agnostic—do you simply adjust your rate to protect revenue?

“My view is that going agnostic is not the public-power model. If my commer-cial and industrial customers want to do solar, I have to participate in that,” Wil-liams said.

Williams Eyes ‘Shared’2016 DSS Experience

TVPPA, TVA ‘learned a lot’ from 2016 DSS transition

FEATUREby BOB GARY JR. | Editor

Burgess

FLASH POINTS2017 DSS Highlights:

» Capacity offering is 10 MW » Capacity awarded to TVPPA-member utili-

ties, which may elect to retain capacity or transfer it to developer/partner

» Maximum project size is 2 MW » 2017 contract, guidelines, selection pro-

cess went on TVA’s website Jan. 11 » Initial applications period: March 1-15 » Application review/selection will take

about three weeks » Applications taken until Dec. 15, pending

capacity availability » Once a project begins generation, base

prices will be escalated by 3 % each Jan. 1. » An un-escalated premium to 2.73 cents

per kWh will be added to the base rate.

Williams


Matt Fagiana had been in law enforcement for 16 years, including two in the terrorism

division of Georgia’s Homeland Security office, when he reported to work at Lenoir City, TN, UB in August 2011.

So it got his attention when he saw a warehouse lacking surveillance, intru-sion detection and access-control devices,

to say nothing of vehi-cles worth thousands of dollars unlocked with keys inside.

“I was shocked, to be honest,” said Fagiana, who has charge of LCUB’s security, safety, risk management and

training. “Absolutely anyone could have driven in and had run of that yard.”

Workplaces are infinitely more secure than they were before 9/11, and there’s no greater concern for any company of any size than cyber security. But Fagiana pointed out that businesses, such as utilities, with vast warehouse space and stuff to fill it, might as well be wearing bulls-eyes.

“You’ve got millions of dollars of [automotive] fleet equipment, maybe water and sewer plant operations and chemicals,” he said. “Every bit of that

stuff appeals to bad guys. That’s stuff he’d like to get his hands on.

“To be secure is to be proactive – 9/11 taught us that. You’ll never have a grip on security, at any level, if you’re reactive. It’s up to us to think outside the box in terms of protecting

property as well as people,” Fagiana said.Keith Swink, an investigator at John-

son City, TN, PB since 1999, said that utility went proactive on warehouse security when it moved in 2002 from an old, wide-open downtown building to a brand-new suburban facility.

“We have a closed warehouse,” said Swink, who’s set to join Fagiana in April for a warehouse-security presentation at TVPPA’s Utility Purchasing & Materials Management Conference.

“It’s a separate building on our campus, closed and locked with perim-eter fencing – and it’s not just closed to the public, but to other employees as well. If you don’t work in the warehouse, you have to be escorted in and out by some-one who does,” he said.

Swink said JCPB has increased the number of cameras it uses to keep eyes on not only its main warehouse, but its substations as well.

“Try to avoid storing stuff at substations,” he said. “You don’t want

people trying to break into a substation to steal a truck or a big spool of copper wire.”

Fagiana offered a few more sugges-tions for upgrading warehouse security:

■ Hire someone with a security mind-set or background: “An engineer looks at a piece of equipment and thinks ‘electric distribution.’ I look at the same piece of equipment and see something I have to keep from being stolen.”

■ If you can’t make that hire, tap someone you already have: “Some places simply don’t have the budget . . . try to identify someone who’s already on your staff and has an inter-est in security.”

■ Basic training: “Human eyeballs are huge. Training your employees in awareness and basic safety proto-cols might cost a little time, but it’s not very expensive. And do we say something when we see something that doesn’t look right, or do we think ‘That’s not my job’ and keep walking?”

■ Barrier protection/access control: “The next steps up; do we have fences where we need them? Are we control-ling access? A card system is a very positive step – to limit access is to pro-tect yourself from intruders.”

■ Video surveillance: “With pole-mounted cameras, you can get an overview of movement, of who’s where. You can incorporate motion sensors, and we’re looking right now at cameras with thermal sensors.”

Warehouse Security: BecauseStuff ‘Appeals To Bad Guys’

High-tech measures good, but so are know-how, awareness

FLASH POINTS » Lenoir City, TN, UB security expert Matt

Fagiana: Warehouses are target-rich envi-ronments for thieves.

» Fagiana: ‘Millions of dollars’ of equipment stored in warehouses, and ‘every bit … appeals to bad guys.’

» Fagiana: Can’t be secure from a reactive posture ‘. . . must be proactive.

» • Johnson City, TN, PB investigator Keith Swink recommends closed warehouses

» • Swink: ‘Try to avoid storing stuff at substations.’

FEATURE

TVPPA’s 2017 Utility Purchasing & Materials Management Conference is scheduled for April 19-21 at the Sheraton Music City in Nashville, TN. Register now at www.tvppa.com.

Fagiana

Swink

by BOB GARY JR. | Editor


FEATURE

Marilyn Means was skeptical when the EnergyRight Solutions for Youth (ERSY)

program was rolled out in 2015, and not unreasonably so.

“I’d been involved before in edu-cational programs that seemed to fall through the cracks,” said Means, the Marketing/Energy Services coordinator at Southwest Tennessee EMC, Browns-ville, TN.

“So, I sat back on this one for a while. I kept track of it and let others step for-ward, but then I realized that this was a really good program that would work,” she said.

And work, it has. The goal of ERSY’s Education & Outreach Advisors was to place the program’s materials with 30 percent of TVPPA-member utilities in each of its first three academic years, so as to achieve 60-percent participation after two years and 90-percent participation at the end of three.

As of Jan. 1, 2017, roughly halfway through ERSY’s second academic year (2016-17), 56 percent of TVPPA-member utilities are on board, which puts the 60-percent interim goal well within reach. TVPPA Vice President Danette Scudder said the principal reason for the program’s success to date could hardly be more basic.

“From the beginning, the beauty of this program has been that it was created by TVPPA-member utility representa-tives,” Scudder said.

Teachers ‘Pressed For Time’A former educator herself, Means said it’s impossible to overestimate the value of giving a teacher a good-to-go lesson plan.

“People don’t realize that teachers are so pressed for time,” she said. “They just don’t have time to come up with original lesson plans.

“What we’ve been able to do is give them lesson plans that have been man-aged professionally and meet [Tennessee] state standards – so the teacher should have no fear of going in and teaching something that does not meet those stan-dards,” she said.

Means said the social-media site Pin-terest is a vital tool for teachers, who post lesson plans their colleagues can use. In fact, social media was prominent in ERSY’s second annual Love of Learning event.

Designed by ERSY’s Education & Out-reach Advisors, Love of Learning Month is the program’s flagship. It’s divided into four weeks, each with a suggested point of emphasis – during the first week, Jan. 30 through Feb. 3, teachers were encour-aged to post information about ERSY, and TVPPA-member utility involvement with schools, to appropriate pages on Face-book, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and other sites.

Other highlights of 2017’s ERSY Love of Learning Month include:

■ Sweets & Treats Week (Feb. 6-10): The general idea for the run-up to Val-entine’s Day is to deliver to teachers baskets full of sweets and treats, but there’s nothing wrong with includ-ing staples such as pens, post-it notes, dry-erase markers, whiteboards and Lysol/Clorox wipes.

“Those are things all teachers need, and they usually have to buy those themselves,” Means said.

■ Plant A Tree Week (Feb. 13-17): Schools and TVPPA-member utilities

might coordinate and/or announce partnerships to plant trees and con-duct subsequent presentations on environmental stewardship.

■ Read Across The Valley Week (Feb. 20-24): TVPPA-member utilities are urged to have staffers read to children in schools, libraries or other commu-nity locations.

EnergyRight Solutions/YouthProgram Ahead Of Schedule

ERSY material in 56 percent of TVPPA-member utilities


FLASH POINTSEnergyRight Solutions for Youth (ERSY) Educa-tion & Outreach Advisors for 2016-17:

» Alabama District: Vicki Watts/Scottsboro EPB » Appalachian District: Mitch Cain (chair)/

Appalachian EC, New Market, TN » Central District: Jay Sanders/Middle Tennes-

see EMC, Murfreesboro, TN; Lindsey Pease/CDE Lightband, Clarksville, TN

» Kentucky District: Lynn Clark (vice chair)/Hopkinsville ES

» Mississippi District: vacant as of 1/1/17 » Southeastern District: Jamie Creekmore/

Cleveland, TN, Utilities » • Western District: Marilyn Means/Southwest

Tennessee EMC, Brownsville, TN

Marilyn Means (above right) of Southwest Tennessee EMC, Brownsville, TN, reads to grade-school students during 2016’s Love of Learning Month. (Photo courtesy Southwest Tennessee EMC)

BY THE NUMBERSTVPPA-member utility participation in EnergyRight Solutions for Youth (ERSY), by district:Alabama – 88%Appalachian – 83%Southeastern – 69%Western – 50%

Central – 44%Kentucky – 36%Mississippi – 21%


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MEMBERSHIP PROFILE

To say that Jeff Dykes merely talked about solar power at last year’s Tennessee Valley Distribution Marketplace Forum would be to sell the presentation—and the

presenter—woefully short.The CEO at Johnson City, TN, Power Board didn’t so much

discuss solar as preach it—no surprise, given his passion for the subject and the fact that he holds an undergraduate degree in theology.

“Solar’s coming,” Dykes told his Forum audience. “Some utilities don’t like that, but we should be the ones leading the charge.”

There’s a lot happening these days at Johnson City PB, where Dykes has started his fifth year in the center seat. Solar’s a big part of that, to be sure, and the 77,000-meter system has been equipped with automated metering infrastructure [AMI] since 2013.

“Having AMI has helped us to be proac-tive in terms of running the system, instead of the system running us,” said Rodney Metcalf, a veteran of 27 years at the utility and its chief operations officer. “It’s cut our power theft drastically.”

But attention has been paid to the fun-damentals—especially right-of-way, a sometimes-tricky matter in the mountains of

East Tennessee and one to which Metcalf takes an aggressive approach.

“We went from just maintaining the system to herbicide treatments and clear-cutting right-of-way as much as possible,” he said. “We also brought a helicopter in for work on our trans-mission lines.

“It’s taken us every bit of seven or eight years, and that work is ongoing,” Metcalf said.

With AuthoritySomething else that’s been under way for some years and still a work in progress is JCPB’s move to become an authority. Dykes said the process is nearly complete, and a new name for the 72-year-old utility could be in place by late February or early March.

“Our board’s been looking at this for a number of years,” he said. “It’s taken much longer than anticipated, but the board wanted to take the time to make sure everyone involved, especially our customers, understands that this is the right thing to do.

“We’ll be changing our name, but our focus won’t change,” he added. “We’ll still be serving customers the way we always have, and we’ve told our

MEMBERSHIP PROFILE: Johnson Cit y PB

Embracing Solar, RebrandingOn Tap At Johnson City PB

Dykes: ‘We should be . . . leading the charge’ on solar


Johnson City Power Board ground man Andy Rowe (center) hands equipment up to journeyman lineman Thomas Lister as operator Ricky Hall (left) looks on.

Metcalf


A View of the Valley from . . .

MEMBERSHIP PROFILE: Johnson Cit y PB

MEMBERSHIP PROFILE

FOUR QUESTIONS Jeff Dykes,

CEO at Johnson City, TN, PB:1. This isn’t just where you’re living right now . . . this is home, yes?It is . . . I grew up in Elizabethton so, for me, coming back to Johnson City was really coming home.2. It’s hard to imagine a bigger leap than the one you made—from ministry to sci-ence. How’d that happen?Coming out of high school, I had a strong desire to go into ministry. But I was the kid to whom math came very easily. I took advanced courses, and it all came very naturally. Later on, a man I worked for told me that

God needs good Christian businessmen as much as he needs good Christian ministers.3. So you learned engineering pretty much on the job?After college, I worked in insurance for a little while. Then I got married and moved to South Carolina to work at Westinghouse. Some engineers there took me under their wings and taught me things like power genera-tion and distribution. They gave me more opportunities to learn than a kid from Elizabethton ever dreamed of.

I also took some courses at [the University of] South Carolina and online, and by the time I left West-inghouse, I had a group of engineers working for me. The Lord has blessed me way more than I deserve.4. Can’t let you go without a question about your golf attire, which is, shall we

say . . . distinctive. What’s that story, and how did Bill Carroll get sucked into this particular vortex?The years I lived in South Carolina, I’d join a big group of cousins and friends for a golf weekend every year. I’d always come out for our last day in some loud outfit. It just made it more fun.

Bill and I are kindred spirits. I only had to ask him once if he’d be willing to wear knickers. We were dressed up for the [2015] Annual Conference tour-nament in Chattanooga, and two little old ladies came up and wanted to take our picture.

You need to be able to enjoy life. You’ve got to be able to have some fun when you’re working. You don’t have to be around Bill Carroll very long to understand that he not only knows his business, but loves life.

customers that they won’t see a difference the next day.”One big reason for the move, Dykes said, is that a Johnson

City energy authority no longer tied directly to that city’s gov-ernment would be far nimbler in its ability to make and act on decisions.

“Look at our business today,” Dykes said. “It’s transitioning so fast. You need to be able to react quickly when things change.

“Getting bonds for a substation, for instance, can take a couple of months, maybe longer. Being an authority makes that better, which is better for our customers,” he said.

‘We Want To Be An Energy Provider’Another very good reason for becoming an authority, Dykes said, is that his utility would then have options for public/private partnerships unavailable to most municipals. Johnson City PB’s current solar project is an example, he said.

“We’re working right now on a project with Silicon Ranch and seeing how that public-private model might look”

The project is one JCPB submitted last year as part of the Distributed Solar Solutions (DSS) program. TVA awarded JCPB

and Silicon Ranch 5 megawatts for a community solar project that, if all goes well, could be operational by sometime this year.

“Our goal is to get com-munity solar up and running,” Dykes said. “Community

solar eliminates all maintenance for the customer. It’s a straight-ahead transaction with no upkeep at all for the customer.

“This will be our test run, a chance to get our feet wet, so we can get a better feel for how this all sets up,” he added.

Dykes conceded that he still sees solar as something of a “niche” market, but understands that his opinion alone won’t carry the day.

“We may find that this isn’t as warranted as we think,” he said, “but we’ve got folks in our community who are very inter-ested in solar, so we want to be leading. If we don’t someone will come in and get between us and our customers.

“Technology is a great thing,” he said. “It keeps moving, whether you want it to or not. We’re talking about solar today, but who knows what the next source of power generation will be? We don’t want to be just an electric service—we want to be an energy provider,” Dykes said.

Jeff Dykes

FLASH POINTS » Johnson City, TN, Power

Board serves about 77,000 customers, some 10,000 of which are non-residential.

» •East Tennessee State Uni-versity is the utility’s largest single customer.


It’s probably safe to say that the Valley’s 9 million residents have a spectacularly wide range of

opinions on TVA and their local power companies.

But a recent survey indicates that many of them agree on at least one thing—that TVPPA-member utilities and TVA do a pretty good job with commu-nity involvement. The joint TVPPA/TVA Communications Advisory Group (CAG) used that finding as a guide in craft-ing the “One Light Across the Valley” campaign.

“We wanted to start capturing how TVPPA-member utilities serve their communities in ways other than simply keeping the lights on,” said TVPPA Vice President Danette Scudder.

Scudder

“The whole point is that the Valley is ‘Powered by People You Know.’ To tell that story is to convey what makes the Valley model unique,” Scudder said.

In October 2016, the CAG asked TVPPA-

member utilities for information about their community involvement from November 2015 forward. The CAG used that information to create a series of com-munications tools that represents the collective contributions in 2016 of TVA and responding TVPPA-member utilities including:

■ Building houses ■ Donating blood■ Supporting education■ Feeding the homeless and less

fortunate■ Reading to children■ Collecting toys and hosting toy drives

“One Light” is designed to promote the many benefits of the Valley model

and to create awareness around the great community-focused work being across the Valley. By highlighting the various activities mentioned above, the intent is to show that that the combined efforts of TVPPA-member utilities and TVA make a difference in people’s lives every day.

“It’s not about dollars spent on a cause,” Scudder said. “It’s about engage-ment—hours volunteered. Pounds of food donated to a community kitchen or pantry. Schools visited.

“There’s a monetary element, cer-tainly, but it’s more about touching lives. Our [utility] people live where they work and want to do what they can to make those communities better.”

Communication Group SwitchesOn ‘One Light’ Campaign

TVPPA’s Scudder: ‘One Light’ not a ‘one-year’ thing

FLASH POINTS » The ‘Powered By People you Know’ toolkit

is available to TVPPA-member communica-tors at https://www.tva.gov/Our-TVA-Story/Toolkit.

» The Toolkit includes polished marketing materials that may be co-branded with TVA; packages include templates for social-media posts, website banners, print ads and more.

» With the simple insertion of photos, logos and text, any utility can customize a template to reflect its brand mission and business objectives.

SECOND REFERENCE


1967 – Cumberland EMC’s Lisenbee To Vietnam50 YEARS AGO – 1967Carrell Succeeds ExumMonroe Carrell, Jr., chief engineer at Duck River EMC, Shelbyville, TN, was appointed by TVPPA President (now Chairman) Tom Wheeler to serve as chairman of the URD Committee. Carrell succeeded Jackson, TN, ED Manager Joe Exum, who left that utility for a position at Consolidated Aluminum Co.

Cumberland EMC’s Lisenbee To VietnamBailey M. Lisenbee, a district manager at Cumberland EMC, Clarksville, TN, took a 6-month leave to help coordinate construction of rural electric coop-eratives in Vietnam. The utilities were designed to serve a quarter of a million rural South Vietnamese. Lisenbee was one of several rural electric experts working under a non-profit contract between NRECA and the State Depart-ment’s Agency for International Development.

40 YEARS AGO – 1977MLGW Wins $4.6 Million Grant The federal Energy Research and Development Administration approved a $4.6 million grant to Memphis, TN, LG & W for an 18-month design and engineering phase of an estimated $160 million coal gasification plant. ERDA also planned to provide half of the actual construction costs and finance the first two years of operation. MLGW’s Jean McCorkle noted that the plant would use about 2,800 tons of coal per day and would produce the equivalent of 50 million cubic feet of natural gas daily, serving approximately 125 major industries.

30 YEARS AGO – 1987TVPPA’s Brown, Primm CertifiedPatty Primm, TVPPA administrative assistant, and Anne Brown, TVPPA meetings manager, earned their Certified Professional Secretary (CPS) designa-tions from the Professional Secretary Institute (PSI).

Loveless Chosen to Succeed SteeleRalph L. Loveless was named general manager of Meriwether Lewis EC, Centerville, TN. Loveless previously served as assistant general manager and had been with the cooperative for 22 years. He succeeded Henry Steele, who retired after 26 years of service at Meriwether Lewis EC.

20 YEARS AGO – 1997 NES Opens Two-Way TalkNashville, TN, ES was set to begin using two-way communication tech-nologies in a one-year pilot to deliver services featuring home and business automation, remote meter reading and power-outage notification. NES President/CEO Matthew Cordaro said the project was the first of its kind in the Valley.

Cato Takes Over At Lawrenceburg PSRonald L. Cato was appointed manager at Lawrenceburg, TN, PS. Cato previously served as engineering services manager at Cumberland EMC, Clarksville, TN.

10 YEARS AGO – 2007Cleveland Utilities MilestoneCleveland, TN, Utilities’ electric

division hit a milestone with 3 million consecutive safe hours worked over the past 15 years. General Manager Tom Wheeler said that, instead of feeling pressure to keep the streak alive, CU’s electric-division employees used the streak for motivation.

Jackson EA Taps WheelerDanny Wheeler was president at Jackson, TN, EA, succeeding the retired John Williams. Wheeler joined JEA in 1966 as a co-op engineering student and later served as the utility’s senior vice president and chief financial officer before becoming president.

www.tvppa.com

TVPPA TIMELINECompiled by Julia WeBer

A Sikorsky HH-3E ‘Jolly Green Giant’ helicopter on a mission to rescue a pilot shot down over Vietnam in 1967.


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TVPPA President/CEO Jack Simmons announced Dec. 12 that he plans to retire on June 1, 2017.

TVPPA Chairman Greg Williams lauded Simmons’ per-

formance not only at TVPPA, but also as chief executive of Seven States Power Corporation, a TVPPA-member-owned G&T cooperative, and Distributors Insurance Co. (DIC), a wholly owned sub-sidiary of TVPPA.

“Jack has served as president/CEO of all three organizations simultane-ously,” Williams said. “He has improved immensely the financial performance of TVPPA, grown the strength and operat-ing success of DIC and was instrumental in the formation of Seven States.

“We owe Jack a tremendous debt of gratitude for his service in these roles and for the model servant-leader he has been,” Williams said.

Simmons has 40 years of electric-util-ity experience, including 18 years with TVA, where he served as Power Supply manager. He also spent eight years as a consultant before succeeding Richard C. Crawford as TVPPA’s CEO in 2004.

Simmons is an honors graduate of Tennessee Technological University, where he earned a degree in civil engi-neering. He is a registered Professional Engineer and a past president of the Chattanooga Branch of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

TVPPA Chairman Williams said Sim-mons is “willing to work as necessary . . . to ensure a smooth transfer of leader-ship,” but added that the TVPPA Board of Directors will “move expeditiously” to identify his successor.

“The board does want to accom-modate Jack’s request for a June 1 retirement,” Williams said. “In the mean-time, TVPPA’s work will continue with Jack at the helm. We remain committed to continuing our work in serving the interests of our members.”

Evans’ TVA Election Makes HistoryThe Tennessee Valley Authority board of directors has unanimously elected V. Lynn Evans of Memphis, TN, to serve as the board’s chair.

Evans is the first African-American to serve as chair in TVA’s 83-year history.

She is also the first female and first Memphian to chair the board, the next meeting of which is set for Feb. 16 in Gatlinburg, TN.

“I am honored that my fellow board mem-bers have confidence in my abilities to serve as chair,” Evans said. “TVA has made great strides in the past four years to improve its financial and operational perfor-

mance. I look forward to our continuous efforts to set strategic priorities and drive for strong results, which benefit all of the people of the Tennessee Valley.”

Former Chairman Joe Ritch and ex-Directors Pete Mahurin and Mike McWherter, completed their terms Jan. 3, 2017. TVA bylaws call for the selec-tion of a board chair within 30 calendar days of the chair’s vacancy to ensure the board can continue to work effectively as changes occur.

A notational vote was held by the six members currently serving on the board to elect Evans to the chair. The matter of

TVPPA CEO SimmonsAnnounces Retirement‘We owe Jack a tremendous debt of gratitude . . .’

NAMES & NEWS

Evans


nominating successors to Ritch, Mahurin and McWherter falls to President Donald Trump. Those nominees will be con-firmed or rejected by the U.S. Senate.

Evans, who holds an undergradu-ate degree in accounting from Jackson State University, was sworn in to the TVA board in January 2013. A native of Anguilla, MS, she has chaired the board’s Audit, Risk, and Regulation Committee since 2014. She has also served on the Nuclear Oversight, People and Performance and External Relations committees.

Evans owns V. Lynn Evans, CPA, a certified public accounting and consult-ing firm established in 1983. She served for nearly a decade on the Memphis, TN, LG&W Board of Commissioners and chaired that panel in 2008 and 2009.

Upon joining the TVA board, Evans told TVPPA News magazine that her experience on the MLGW board made her “probably as attuned as any other director to the concerns of TVPPA’s membership.”

Sax

Murfreesboro ED’s Sax To Retire Former TVPPA Chairman Steve Sax has announced that he plans to retire in August 2017 after more than 11 years as general manager at Murfrees-

boro, TN, ED.The longtime chair of TVPPA’s

Emergency Response Team, Sax earned an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from Purdue University, a master’s degree in utility planning from Georgia Tech and an MBA from Dela-ware State University.

He began his career in earnest at TVA, where he worked in Muscle Shoals, AL, on projects involving energy devel-opment, conservation, and economic development. He left in the mid-1980s to become general manager at Fort Payne, AL, IA, and was posted there when he was elected in mid-1997 to a one-year term as TVPPA chairman.

Sax spent 15 years at Fort Payne IA, leaving for a utility executive position in Dover, DE, in which he had over-sight responsibility for more than 150

employees and an annual budget of $100 million. He returned to the Valley in mid-2006, when he took the Murfreesboro ED job. He serves at present as the president of the Tennessee Municipal Electric Power Association.

McDonald

Thornton

Tuscumbia’s Thornton Retiring; McDonald to Succeed Tuscumbia, AL, Utilities General Manager David Thornton has announced that he plans to retire March 1.

Thornton, who closes the book on a 26-year career at the utility, will be succeeded by Jeff McDonald, who’s served as assistant man-ager since October 2016.

A Sheffield, AL, native, Thornton served

a four-year hitch in the U.S. Air Force. His service complete, he came home to the Shoals and trained for two years at TVA’s Colbert Steam Plant.

Once Thornton finished his training, he stayed on at Colbert until 1980, when he transferred to TVA’s Florence, AL, office. In the meantime, he went back to school and earned an undergraduate degree in physics from the University of North Alabama.

In all, Thornton put in 18 years (1973-91) at TVA before leaving to take the GM’s post at Tuscumbia Utilities.

As does Thornton, McDonald calls the Shoals area home—he’s from Killen, AL, near Florence. McDonald earned his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering degree from the University of Alabama at Huntsville in 2002, then joined Tuscumbia Utilities as its engineer.

Brisendine Steps Down At Fort Payne, AL, IADanny Brisendine has stepped down after more than 13 years as general manager at Fort Payne, AL, IA.

A news release issued Nov. 17 states, in part, that Brisendine “has accepted another position with FPIA, thus delay-ing a much-deserved retirement.”

The statement credits Brisendine with having kept the utility “fiscally sound”

and notes growth in the system’s “size and strength” on his watch. Brisendine will be working with FPIA’s Board of Directors “in a number of different areas,” the statement said, as the utility readies to move into a new building

Griggs

Griggs Succeeds Scarbrough At Milan DPUJason Griggs has succeeded the retired David Scarbrough as superintendent at Milan, TN, DPU.

Griggs came to the utility position after

having served as chief financial officer and Economic Development director for the city of Milan. Prior to taking that post, he spent six years as utility manager for Dyer (TN) Public Utilities.

Griggs started Jan. 3. Scarbrough’s last day was to have been Jan. 31.

Newman

Forked Deer’s Newman Elected To TVPPA BoardJeff Newman, general manager at Forked Deer EC, Halls, TN, has been elected by his Western District Managers Association peers to a seat on the TVPPA

Board of Directors.Newman was elected Jan. 12 to

succeed Kevin Murphy of Southwest Tennessee EMC, Brownsville, TN, in rep-resenting Western District cooperatives on the TVPPA board. Murphy stepped down from that post at the end of 2016.

Newman took over at Forked Deer EC when Harold Willis retired in Janu-ary 2015. Newman studied electrical engineering at the University of Tennes-see-Martin and started at Forked Deer EC on a co-op basis in 1991. He went on to work in right-of-way and line work before becoming the cooperative’s engi-neering coordinator in 2000.

Seven States Board Elects Blevins, Fay, FerrellThe Seven States Power Corporation (7SPC) Board of Directors voted Dec. 13 to keep Rody Blevins, Greg Fay and Jim Ferrell in place on its leadership team.

Meeting in Chattanooga, TN, 7SPC’s directors Blevins, president/CEO at

NAMES & NEWS


NAMES & NEWS

Volunteer EC, Deca-tur, TN, was elected 7SPC chairman. Fay, general manager at Clinton, TN, UB, was elected vice chairman and Ferrell, president/CEO at Jackson, TN, EA, was elected secretary-treasurer. All three officers were elected by acclamation.

Blevins, Fay and Fer-rell had been in place since the September 2015 resignation of then-7SPC Chairman Jay Stowe, who left his post as Huntsville, AL, Utilities president/CEO for a senior vice presi-dency at TVA. Blevins had been 7SPC’s vice chairman, while Fay had served as secretary/treasurer.

Bowers

Kelley

Bowers, Kelley Named TVPPA Committee ChairmenTVPPA Chairman Greg Williams has named John Bowers of Pickwick EC, Selmer, TN, and Wes Kelley of Columbia, TN, P&WS to TVPPA committee chairmanships.

Bowers, who’s head-ing into his third year as his cooperative’s chief executive, takes over for Jim Nanney of Alcorn Co. EPA, Corinth, MS as chairman of the Opera-

tions Coordination Committee. Nanney retired this past fall.

Though Kelley was just formally named at the Dec. 12 meeting of TVPPA’s Board of Directors, he’s already been on the job as chairman of the Regulatory Advisory Group. Kelley’s in his fifth year as his utility’s executive director.

In other personnel moves, the TVPPA Board of Directors ratified the nomina-tions of five individuals to serve on the Resolutions Committee: Robert Bettis

of Sweetwater, TN, UB (Southeastern District); Scott Dahlstrom of Trenton, TN, L&W (Western District); Mark Fisk of Benton, KY, ES (Kentucky District); Steve Hargrove of Sheffield, AL, Utilities (Alabama District) and Tim Wigington of Tishomingo Co. EPA, Iuka, MS (Missis-sippi District).

Cooke

TVPPA E&T Launches Dothan, AL, Site; Eyes IllinoisTVPPA Education & Training Services (E&T) has begun conducting technical training at Dothan, AL, Utilities, per an agreement

reached by the two parties in late 2015, and is working on a similar arrangement in Illinois.

“We’re happy to be working with Dothan Utilities and looking forward

to the opportunity in Illinois,” said TVPPA Training Director John Cooke.

“We’ve got Affiliate and Associate members—and there are plenty of non-TVPPA-member utilities—for whom the availability of a training site outside our footprint will be a real benefit.”

TVPPA and Dothan Utilities have in common the memory of the late John Marse. A Dothan resident, Marse worked 24 years at Dothan Utilities and retired in 1996. He joined TVPPA full-time in 1998 and put in 17 more years, most of which he spent as the lead instructor at its train-ing site near Scottsboro, AL. Marse died in May 2016 after battling cancer.

“I’d like to think John would be very pleased by our partnership with Dothan Utilities,” said Cooke, who added that TVPPA has been working with the Illi-nois Municipal Utilities Agency (IMUA) on an agreement that could allow TVPPA to conduct technical training in

Fay

Ferrell

Blevins

IN MEMORY

Bettis

robert bettis, general manager at Sweetwater, TN, UB for the past two decades, died Jan. 31 at the age of 65.

Bettis was active in TVPPA, particu-

larly in his service on the Distributors Insurance Co. Board of Directors and on various TVPPA committees. He had, in recent years, served multiple terms on the TVPPA Resolutions Committee.

Carringer

John carringer, who served for some 40 years as either manager or board member at Murphy, NC, PB, passed away Jan. 24 at the age of 88.

A Murphy native, Carringer served in the U.S. Air Force from 1950

to 1953. He returned to Murphy after that hitch and took up his family’s longtime business interests.

Carringer told TVPPA News mag-azine in 2013 that when he took the manager’s job at Murphy PB in 1973, “I didn’t know enough about power to handle the job . . . but I soon real-ized that all I had to do was get good people, then get out of the way and let them do their jobs.”

Carringer was the long-serving secretary/treasurer for the South-eastern District Power Distributors Association. He also served his home city as a member of the Murphy Town Council, the Cherokee County Chamber of Commerce, the Tri-State Community College Board of Trust-ees and board chairman of Murphy Medical Center.

Carringer eventually retired as manager of Murphy PB and was succeeded by Larry Kernea. In 2013, at the age of 85, he was elected to a six-year term on the utility’s board of directors. ■


Springfield, IL.“That we have training sites in

Scottsboro, Princeton [KY], Jackson [TN] and Greeneville [TN] makes our train-ing very convenient,” Cooke said. “But having additional sites in the Midwest and near the Gulf Coast makes our train-ing a lot more accessible for a lot more utilities.”

www.tvppa.com

renewable resources, energy-efficiency and demand-response programs, and other distributed-energy technologies.

TVA’s latest Integrated Resource Plan includes no new central-station genera-tion, and is counting on the distribution marketplace of the future to meet any growing demand and energy needs of retail customers. In fact, according to recent trends, electricity demand may be declining rather than growing.

Forty years seems like a long time, but for those of us who have continually wit-nessed “unprecedented” changes, it has really been just a wink. I now realize that there really has been precedence in how it all fits together, and those precedents are just part of the incremental change each day for each generation of profes-sionals that passes through leadership roles in our industry.

Thank goodness for the bright, ener-getic folks who come behind us. And thanks to all of them for listening to, and learning from, the lessons of those who will soon move on.

Comments . . . (Continued from page 6)

Names . . . (Continued from page 31)

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companies and others. Mobilitie designs, builds, operates and maintains, among other things, small cell networks and com-munications towers. In its Petition, Mobilitie requested three primary things:

■ That the FCC interpret Section 253(c) of the Communica-tions Act to limit “fair and reasonable compensation” to mean cost-based charges for issuing permits and managing rights-of-way;

■ That the FCC should interpret Section 253(c) of the Commu-nications Act to mean that local government charges cannot exceed those charges imposed on other providers for similar access; and

■ That the FCC should interpret Section 253(c) to require local governments to publicly disclosure the rights-of-way charges that the local governments previously imposed on other providers.

Attachment Requests ComingIn support of its Petition, Mobilitie outlined a number of fees that it contended were not reasonable, cost-based or competitively neutral. These fees included up-front application processing fees of up to $10,000 to review an application for a construction permit.

Other referenced fees include annual per-pole fees for new poles for each small cell site, including annual fees of $20,000 per pole in one locality, and $30,000 per pole in another. Mobili-tie also cited fees based upon a percentage of revenues and fees based upon each foot of a fiber installation as examples of potential problematic fees.

In each case, Mobilitie contended that these fees exceed fair and reasonable compensation and are not imposed on a competitively neutral and nondiscriminatory basis because the fees are not tied to cost of issuing permits and maintaining rights-of-way.

While each of Mobilitie’s contentions focuses on local gov-ernments acting as franchising authorities, TVPPA-member systems and their counsel should follow this proceeding, because the discussion regarding the appropriate regulatory framework for small cell deployments will likely continue.

The FCC’s request for comment, for example, is not necessarily limited to the mat-ters raised in the Mobilitie Petition, and the FCC may explore other issues in the future as a result of this pro-ceeding. The most recent significant FCC Order address-ing these issues in the context of small cell type deploy-ments was entered in 2014, and so this proceeding may well result in new interpreta-tions and applications of the

Communications Act in the context of wireless facilities.This new FCC proceeding also signals a coming wave of

new infrastructure installations throughout the Valley. While the initial installations may initially focus on more densely populated areas, the sheer number of potential small cell instal-lations suggest that many, if not most, local power companies could receive a request to make a small cell installation.

Utility poles are by no means the exclusive place where these facilities can be installed, but local power companies are likely to receive requests to attach these facilities to their poles. TVPPA has assembled a work group to begin to evaluate the operational considerations of these new installations. In the meantime, TVPPA-member systems and their primary attor-neys would be well advised to follow this FCC proceeding and to watch for further federal, state and local regulatory develop-ments in this arena.

This article is for informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. TVPPA-member systems are encouraged to consult their primary counsel to discuss the matters addressed in this article.

Legal . . . (Continued from page 10)

renewed interest in making progress on a storage and disposal strategy for spent nuclear fuel, a top priority for Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-TN. With the departures of the Obama adminis-tration (which had abandoned the project as “unworkable”) and ex-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, who had blocked progress on the issue for decades, the time is ripe for movement on storage solutions.

Known UnknownsAs the 115th Congress takes shape, action on these and other items may be upended by world events or changing political realities. There are several key tensions at play after the election that will not easily or predictably resolve.

And, if 2016 taught us one thing, it’s to be prepared for the unexpected.

Much is uncertain in Wash-ington these days, but the fact that Republicans hold the U.S. House of Representatives, the Senate and the White House means the 115th Congress will be very busy.

FLASH POINTS » An already shorthanded TVA

Board of Directors that could become more so, the future of tax-free municipal bonds and Obama-era regulations are just a few of the items of par-ticular interest to TVPPA and member utilities.

» Bottom line: TVPPA members should stand ready to weigh in on fast-moving and quick-changing policy dialogues.

Washington Report . . . (Continued from page 9)

FLASH POINTS » In December 2016, the FCC

invited comment on potential regulatory steps it could take to facilitate deployment of ‘5G’ wireless facilities.

» The proceeding signals a coming wave of wireless facility installations that could involve local power company poles, substation properties and other facilities.

» TVPPA has assembled a work group to begin to evaluate the operational considerations of these new installations.

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ADVERTISER DIRECTORYThe following companies support TVPPA by ad-vertising in TVPPA News. Their support enables us to provide you with the quality of publication you expect from your association. Please join us in recognizing these companies, and be sure to tell them you saw their ad in TVPPA News!

A.J. Gallagherwww.ajg.com .............................................................. 13Alexander Publicationswww.alexanderpublications.com ............................... 23Alexander Thompson Arnoldwww.atacpa.net ............................................................ 9Central Service Associationwww.csa1.com ........................................... Inside FrontDistributors Insurance Companywww.distributors-insurance.com ...........................BackElectric Power Systemswww.epsii.com ........................................................... 28Fisher Arnoldwww.fisherarnold.com .................................................. 4GDS Associates, Inc.www.gdsassociates.com ............................................ 32Leidoswww.leidos.com ......................................................... 11National Information Solutions Cooperative (NISC)www.nisc.coop ............................................................. 7PowerTech Engineeringwww.pt-eng.com .......................................................... 4Service Electric Companywww.serviceelectricco.com ....................................... 26Stanley Consultantswww.stanleyconsultants.com .................................... 19TVPPA Business Developmentwww.tvppa.com .......................................................... 23TVPPA Conferenceswww.tvppa.com ..........................................Inside BackTVPPA eResourcewww.tvppa.com .......................................................... 23TVPPA Technical Trainingwww.tvppa.com .......................................................... 28

Looking for an economical way to reach the entire electric utility industry in the Tennessee Valley? Let TVPPA deliver your message for you. For advertising rates and information, call Tim Daugherty at 423.756.6511 or send e-mail to [email protected].

THE LAST WORD

President/CEO: Jack Simmons423.490.7918 • [email protected]: Judy Hughes423.490.7912 • [email protected]: Judy Hughes423.490.7912 • [email protected]/Membership: Tim Daugherty423.490.7930 • [email protected]: Phillip Burgess423.490.7928 • [email protected]: Tim Daugherty423.490.7930 • [email protected]

Conferences: Diana Bryant423.490.7923 • [email protected] & Training: John Cooke423.490.7927 • [email protected] Relations: Phillip Burgess423.490.7928 • [email protected] Services: Kari Crouse423.490.7918 • [email protected]/Pricing: Jim Sheffield423.490.7925 • [email protected] Services: Doug Peters423.490.7924 • [email protected]

TVA RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT ROADMAP: A RENEWED FOCUS

BBOTH TECHNOLOGICAL AND economic changes are fueling the transformation of our indus-

try that many consider “disruptive.” Falling prices for distributed energy resources (DER), smarter technologies, cheap sensors, and customers like Walmart, Target, McDonalds and Starbucks demanding greener renew-able generation are just a few signs of the advancing change.

How and when this disruption will significantly affect electric-power delivery in the Tennessee Valley is something for which we need to prepare. Some local power companies (LPCs) already are facing new challenges. TVA believes being prepared to take advantage of new market dynamics so strongly that it recently created a DER busi-ness unit to focus in the area.

As a part of that new business unit, TVA’s Technology Innovation group has recently created a Research & Development (R&D) Roadmap to guide resources and invest-ments that support learning around these disruptive forces and informs what actions we should be taking.

TVA envisions a power system that is

highly flexible, resilient, and connected that optimizes energy production and delivery. To support this vision, the roadmap effort identified five priority areas of focus. These areas are:

» DER Selection & Deployment—An inte-grated and cost-effective suite of options delivered in partnership with LPCs that provide distributed energy resources and services that direct serve and retail con-sumers support.

» Grid Modernization—Reliable, flexible, efficient and integrated transmission & distribution networks that allow for secure two-way power flow and communication.

» Application of Data Analytics—A secure, resilient and integrated power system that uses appropriate data and information to improve decision making throughout the power system.

» Fleet Optimization & New Generation Technology—Resilient, adaptive and effi-cient power generation, transmission & delivery.

» Regulation & Policy—Science-based envi-ronmental and energy regulations and policies, achievable compliance.

In the near future, you will hear more about this Roadmap as TVA expands its efforts to partner with LPCs interested in project and information collaboration.

If you would like additional informa-tion, please contact Gary Brinkworth (423.751.2193, e-mail [email protected]) or David Smith (423.751.4785, email [email protected]). Additionally, to sign up for an EPRI or Esource website account please go to www.epri.com and/or www.esource.com and register. If you have any trouble, contact DeJim Lowe at TVA (423.751.2660 or [email protected]).

Brought to you by EPRI Distribution Program advisors John Bowers and Joey Lawson of Pick-wick EC, Selmer, TN; Philip Lim of Murfreesboro, TN, ED; Jack Suggs of Oak Ridge, TN, ED and Clint Wilson of TVPPA.

TVPPA STAFF QUICK REFERENCE

‘First, we must reject the false paradigm that if you are pro-energy, you are

anti-environment and if you are pro-

environment, you are anti-energy. I utterly reject the narrative.’— SCOTT PRUITT, President Trump’s pick for EPA administrator, during his Senate confirmation hearing

Timely Tech Tip


U T I L I T Y P U R C H A S I N G • A N N U A L • E N G I N E E R I N G & O P E R A T I O N S • U T I L I T Y S A F E T Y • A C C O U N T I N G & F I N A N C E • C U S T O M E R S E R V I C E &

C O M M U N I C A T I O N S ¶ H U M A N R E S O U R C E M A N A G E M E N T

T h e U t i l i t y P u r c h a s i n g & M a t e r i a l s M a n a g e m e n t C o n f e r e n c e i s T V P P A ’ s a n n u a l e d u c a t i o n a l m e e t -i n g f o r e l e c t r i c u t i l i t y p u r c h a s i n g p r o f e s s i o n a l s – t h e k e y i n d i v i d u a l s w h oa r e c h a r g e d w i t h p r o c u r e -m e n t , i n v e n t o r y r e c o r d s ,w a r e h o u s i n g a n d m a t e r i a l sd i s t r i b u t i o n f o r e l e c t r i cs y s t e m s i n t h e c o m m u n i -t i e s a c r o s s t h e T e n n e s s e eV a l l e y a n d b e y o n d !

2017Conference Series

T h i s y e a r ’ s a g e n d a i s p a c k e d f u l l o f i n f o r m a t i v e , e n g a g i n g a n d c r i t i c a l p u r c h a s i n g a n d w a r e h o u s i n g i n f o r m a t i o n y o u w o n ’ t w a n t t o m i s s . S c h e d u l e d t o p i c s i n c l u d e :

• P r e - C o n f e r e n c e O p t i o n : W o r k o r d e r , I n v e n t o r y & P l a n t : A n o v e r v i e w o f h o w t h e

p r o c e s s o p e r a t e s w i t h i n a u t i l i t y . T h i s c l a s s c a n a l s o b e a p p l i e d t o T V P P A ’ s U P M M c e r t i f i c a t e r e q u i r e m e n t s .

• T h i s y e a r ’ s c o n f e r e n c e h a s m u l t i p l e b r e a k o u t s e s s i o n s g e a r e d t o w a r d s P u r c h a s i n g o r M a t e r i a l s M a n a g e m e n t w h i c hm e a n s m o r e o p t i o n s f o r y o u t o s e l e c t f r o m t o i n c l u d e :

• C o n t r a c t B e s t P r a c t i c e s• W o r k o r d e r G e n e r a t i o n t o P i c k i n g L i s t s• V e n d o r E v a l u a t i o n s• W a r e h o u s e S t o r a g e O p t i m i z a t i o n• O p e n F o r u m s s p e c i f i c a l l y f o r e a c h f o c u s• F E M A P r o c u r e m e n t R e g u l a t i o n s D u r i n g a C r i s i s• T h e V a l u e o f M a n a g i n g S u r p l u s• S c r a p M e t a l D i s p o s a l• A n a l y z i n g B i g D a t a. . . a n d M O R E !

T o R e g i s t e r a n d f o r a c o m p l e t e a g e n d a a n d a d d i t i o n a l c o n f e r e n c e d e t a i l s , v i s i t w w w . t v p p a . c o m a n d c l i c k “ C o n f e r e n c e s ” t h e n “ U t i l i t y P u r c h a s i n g & M a t e r i a l s M a n a g e m e n t C o n f e r e n c e ”

A P R I L 1 9 - 2 1 , 2 0 1 7S H E R A T O N M U S I C C I T YN A S H V I L L E , T N

U t i l i t y P U r c h a s i n g & M a t e r i a l s M a n a g e M e n t c o n f e r e n c e

R E G I S T E R O N L I N E N O W ! R o o m r e s e r v a t i o n i n f o r m a t i o n i s p r o v i d e d u p o n r e g i s t e r i n g .

N E T W O R K I N G º E D U C A T I N G º I M P R O V I N G

PO Box 6189Chattanooga, TN 37401-6189

PRSRT STDU.S. Postage

PAIDPermit No. 586Chattanooga,

Tennessee

Return Service Requested

678-393-5200

Competitively Priced Insurance Coverage.Distributors Insurance Company has provided utility-specific property-casualty insurance coverages at com-petitive premiums to more TVPPA members than any other insurer or program since its 1983 inception. What does this mean? It means it costs little more to go first class and have the broadest property-casualty insurance coverages and most professional claims and loss control services available.Owning your own insurance company does make a difference.

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Utility Specific Coverage

w w w . d i s t r i b u t o r s - i n s u r a n c e . c o mDistributors Insurance Company is a wholly owned subsidiary of the

Tennessee Valley Public Power Association, Inc.

Documents

Fire on the Mountain - TVPPA...4 TVPPA NEWS JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017 Officers chairman Gregory D. Williams Appalachian EC, New Market, TN vice chairman Terry N. Kemp Starkville, MS, ES