TVA Named Top Utility by Site Selection Magazine Third Straight Year

September 11, 2008

Site Selection magazine has named TVA one of the 2008 Top Utilities of the Year for the third consecutive year for outstanding economic development achievements in 2007.

In 2007, TVA and its distributors, working with state and local partners in the seven- state Tennessee Valley region, helped attract or retain more than 45,000 jobs and leveraged some $5.6 billion in capital investment including Toyota, PACCAR, ServiceMaster, Aisin Automotive Casting, GE Aviation, Snack Alliance, Howa USA Inc., Nissin Brake and Indorama Polymers.

“Economic development is a team effort, and TVA’s top-notch players closely collaborate and provide support to local power companies and strategic regional, state and community partners. All played an important role to help us earn this recognition,” said TVA Senior Vice President of Economic Development John Bradley. “It is an amazing accomplishment to be benchmarked with utilities across the nation and achieve top-decile performance for three years in a row.”

Site Selection’s Top Utilities recognition is based on performance excellence in four categories — capital investment, job creation, capital investment per capita and jobs per 10,000 in population. The magazine takes into account responses from a select group of site selection consultants and investments made by utilities in new generation, transmission and renewable energy projects.

"Utilities play a key role as participants in the economic development efforts of cities, regions and all areas working to improve their local business climate," says Site Selection Editor-in-Chief Mark Arend. “The 2008 Top Utilities were particularly successful in their 2007 endeavors."

TVA’s economic development services are focused on attracting new industry, retaining and growing existing businesses and helping communities be better prepared for economic growth. Economic development is a major part of TVA’s core mission; more program information is available at TVAed.com.

Site Selection’s Top Utilities designation gauges the ability of U.S. utility companies to complement power delivery with the powers of persuasion to foster corporate investment in their territories, including Web site tools and innovative programming. Results are tallied from responses to Site Selection’s annual survey of utilities and the magazine’s own research.

The international magazine delivers expansion planning information to more than 44,000 executives of fast-growing companies. The entire Top Utilities article and the annual Utilities Directory appear in the September 2008 edition of Site Selection and online at www.siteselection.com.

TVA is the nation’s largest public power provider and is completely self- financing. TVA provides power to large industries and 159 power distributors that serve approximately 8.8 million consumers in seven southeastern states. TVA also manages the Tennessee River and its tributaries to provide multiple benefits, including flood damage reduction, navigation, water quality and recreation.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Only economic development projects for 2007 were eligible for this recognition by Site Selection magazine. TVA’s Megasite program helped attract Volkswagen to Chattanooga in 2008, but that project was not considered for this particular recognition and is not included in this news release.

Media Contact

Jim Allen, Knoxville, (865) 632-7453
TVA News Bureau, Knoxville, (865) 632-6000

TVA Newsroom