Power supplies are low further South, local suppliers say the supply is good here

We are still under a winter storm warning until Thursday which means more people will be at home. I talked with the Jackson Energy Authority and the Tennessee Valley Authority about how our power supply is looking across the state during these frigid temperatures.

“Anytime you have extremely low temperatures there is stress on the system, there demand peaks. We’ve probably had our second largest day for the demand on natural gas because of our extremely low temperatures," says Steve Bowers, Communications manager for the Jackson Energy Authority.

JEA serves thousands of homes across the city. Officials with the energy provider say the snow did not affect power lines, but they did have a few scattered outages.

The Tennessee Valley Authority also helps power many Tennessee homes. They have power sources throughout 7 different states. A spokesperson with TVA says their wide spread sources help in weather conditions like this.

“We can draw power from a lot of different sources, a lot of different locations so it would help minimize some of the challenges that you are seeing with other power systems that may be struggling a little bit with this extreme cold weather." says Jim Hopson, TVA spokesperson.

Now JEA is concerned about the possibility of freezing rain in the forecast later this week.

“The concern is, we have more snow coming in later this week, or at least it’s forecast. They are talking about mixing that with freezing rain. We don’t feel like we’re out yet," adds Bowers.

Both energy providers say that they are confident in their power systems keeping up with the higher demand of energy right now.