Have a chemical processing plant in Tennessee pulling about 4.5MW continuous load. TVA is offering their Schedule MSB interruptible rate which would save them roughly $23,000/month in exchange for being subject to curtailment during peak periods. Anyone have experience with TVA's interruption frequency and how often they actually call events?
TVA interruptible rate Schedule MSB - worth it for chemical plant?
Deborah, we have three chemical plants on MSB in the TVA territory. Over the past 5 years, interruptions have been pretty rare - maybe 4-6 times per year and usually only 2-4 hours each. The savings definitely outweigh the occasional production disruption if they can handle the curtailments.
That's not too bad Chuck. What's the penalty if they can't curtail when called? The plant manager is worried about being in the middle of a critical batch process.
The penalty is pretty steep - something like $15/kW for any load above their firm commitment during an interruption event. For a 4.5MW load that could be $67,500 if they can't curtail at all. Most chemical plants I work with can shut down non-critical processes to get to maybe 60-70% of normal load during events.