Commissioner Mark C. Christie Statement
October 21, 2021
Docket Nos. EL21-40
I concur and write separately to offer the following.
Changing the basic statutes governing the Tennessee Valley Authority[1] is the prerogative of Congress, not this Commission. If Congress should choose, however, to consider changes to those statutes, with the goal of ensuring that power costs to TVA’s consumers are as “low as feasible,”[2] as intended by statute, then Congress may wish to consider requiring TVA to increase the amount of power supply it procures on a competitive, least-cost, non-discriminatory basis. Competitive procurements of power supply – versus allowing some customers, often the largest, simply to leave load and shop elsewhere – avoid the potential of cost-shifting to remaining customers, most of whom are small businesses and residential customers who do not have the bargaining power of very large customers. Every LSE has fixed costs, and when large customers leave load, those fixed costs must still be paid, with remaining customers as the obvious source from which the LSE could seek to recover its fixed costs. Competitive procurements hold the promise of reducing power supply costs to all customers, large and small, while avoiding the threat of potential cost-shifting to small customers.