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Title: Projections of future demand for electricity in the TVA region: the residential sector. [For year 1990]

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:5908484

This is a summary of oral testimony presented before Senator Jim Sasser at hearings on future power projections in the Tennessee Valley, Knoxville, TN, February 15, 1979. The material presented here is based on work done at ORNL for the U.S. GAO during the summer of 1977. Results of this work appear in Chapter 5 and Appendix II of the GAO report, Electric Energy Options Hold Great promise for the Tennessee Valley Authority, published in November 1978. The TVA projection methodologies being used in 1977 were definitely not state-of-the-art, Dr. Hirst feels. Three different methods were used and a final single projection was prepared. None of the methods was explicitly sensitive to both the engineering and the economic determinants of residential electricity and energy use. Thus, the effects of government conservation programs (developed by TVA, state energy offices, and the U.S. DOE) and new residential energy technologies (solar water heaters, improved electric heat pumps) could not be explicitly included in the TVA model. The data supporting the 1977 residential electricity models was incomplete and inadequate. In their July 1977 load forecast, TVA showed residential electricity consumption at 64 billion kWh in 1990. Projections developed with the ORNL residential energy use model showed a range in 1990 of 52 to 56 billion kWh. The July 1978 load forecasts prepared by TVA remedy many of the problems seen in 1977. (MCW)

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (USA)
DOE Contract Number:
W-7405-ENG-26
OSTI ID:
5908484
Report Number(s):
TID-29448
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English