TVA and RUS
Two federal agencies, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and the Rural Utilities Service (RUS),
are closely associated with, and have a great bearing on Pennyrile Electric.
RUS (originally REA – Rural Electrification Administration) is located in Washington, D. C. It came
in to being in the 1930’s for the purpose of aiding responsible groups in their efforts to bring central station
electricity to rural America. Most of this aid was in the form of low-interest loans to provide the capital needed
for the construction of the many miles of lines that had to be built. Today, Pennyrile Electric gets capital loan funds from RUS and Federal Financing Bank.
TVA was also formed in the 1930s to harness the mighty Tennessee River, and provide economic
guidance to the area surrounding this great river. Twenty-six dams were built to control the devastating
floods that had plagued the area each spring. One of the by-products of these dams was electricity. TVA sold
this electrical energy to local distributors for use by the people of the Valley. Pennyrile Electric is one of the 155
distributors that is supplied electric current by TVA. At the present time TVA’s electric current is generated by
eleven coal-fired steam plants, twenty-nine hydro-power plants, three nuclear plants, nine combustion-turbine
plants, five natural gas combined-cycle plants, two diesel-generator sites, sixteen solar energy sites, one
wind-energy site and one biomass-cofiring site.