John Thomas of TVANASHVILLE - The Tennessee Valley Authority nearly doubled its net income in fiscal 2014 as colder weather and a better economy helped boost electric sales from the previous year.
TVA said today it earned $469 million on sales of $11.1 billion in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30. In fiscal 2013, TVA earned $271 million on revenues of just under $11 billion.
TVA Chief Financial Officer John Thomas said the polar vortex pushed winter power sales and overall economic growth boosted other revenues despite the loss in May 2013 of TVA's biggest industrial customer, U.S. Enrichment Corp., in Paducah, Ky.
Thomas said TVA is ahead of its 3-year plan to cut a total of $500 million of operation and maintenance costs. With better-than-expected power sales, TVA was able to generate enough revenues to pay down its statutory debt by $1.2 billion even as the utility invested in cleaning up existing plants and building new generation.
TVA spent a record $2.5 billion on capital improvements in fiscal 2014.
From its peak five years ago when TVA's statutory debt rose to $28 billion, TVA has now paid down its statutory debt by nearly $5 billion, Thomas said.
In September, TVA also made the final payment on the original debt from the federal government's original investment in the federal utility, which was created in 1933. TVA, which began repaying that debt in 1961, has repaid $3.6 billion on the original $1 billion the federal government provided TVA to build some of its dams and power plants.
Read more in tomorrow's Times Free Press.