The colder-than-normal winter boosted residential electricity sales for the Tennessee Valley Authority in the first three months of 2014, but those gains were offset by the loss of TVA's biggest customer last year and a drop in industrial power sales.
TVA said today it boosted net income in its second fiscal quarter to $295 million on revenues of $2.9 billion In the same period a year ago, TVA earned $54 million on sales of $2.7 billion.
For the first half of the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1, 2014, TVA said its sales were down 2 percent but overall net income bounced back from a net loss a year ago of $191 million in the 6-month period to net income this year of $228 million.
Despite weather-related gains in electricity usage by homeowners with electric furnaces in the Tennessee Valley this winter, TVA industrial sales dropped due to the shut down last spring of the uranium enrichment plant near Paducah, Ky., operated by U.S. Enrichment Corp.
In its quarterly filing with the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission, TVA said it cut its operating and maintenance expenses in the 3-month period by $83 million from the same period a year ago. The federal utility is trying to cut operating expenses by $500 million a year by 2015.