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Hopkinsville Electric System reports clean audit, urges conservation ahead of TVA peak forecast
Summary
At the Jan. 21 Hopkinsville City Council meeting, Hopkinsville Electric System managers presented a year-end financial summary, safety record and broadband expansion plans; they also urged customer conservation after the Tennessee Valley Authority forecasted an historic regional demand peak.
Hopkinsville Electric System representatives told the City Council on Jan. 21 that the utility received a clean audit and is pushing conservation ahead of a Tennessee Valley Authority demand forecast.
In a presentation to the council, Jeff Hurd, speaking for Hopkinsville Electric System (HES), said Dugan Gentry & Associates issued an unmodified (clean) audit opinion for the utility. Hurd summarized financial trends, saying assets and net position have improved and that revenue grew relative to the prior year while expenses also rose.
Hurd said HES has an 83-year history as a municipal electric provider and has expanded into telecommunications in recent decades. He emphasized the system’s relationship with the Tennessee Valley Authority and said TVA predicted a peak of roughly 35,000 megawatts in the region during the early morning hours the next day — a level TVA flagged as a possible all-time high. “They’re utilizing all their generation assets as we speak,” Hurd said, urging voluntary conservation such as turning off unused lights during peak hours.
The presentation highlighted several operational topics: HES’s safety record (Hurd reported more than 20 years without a recordable lost‑time injury), a manufacturing defect that produced “purple” LED streetlights, ongoing telecom expansion and investments in backup capacity for the utility’s network operations center. Hurd said the purple‑light defect affected the nation and Hopkinsville purchased more than 2,600 affected fixtures during the problem period; replacements were made at the manufacturer’s cost, he said.
On broadband, Hurd said the system is expanding fiber service from neighborhoods including Wayne Sherwood toward Country Club and Justified Drive and that about 400 homes are in line for service as builds proceed. He said those broadband projects have been funded from HES’s own budget because the city’s service areas did not qualify for many federal/state broadband grants that target wholly unserved areas.
Council members and others praised HES’s quick response times for internet service calls and its local, in‑town technical support. Hurd acknowledged City crews and the utility’s management team and said the utility remains focused on reliability, safety and expanding high‑speed service where feasible.
The report did not propose new council action; Hurd said the utility will continue infrastructure investments and outreach about conservation when TVA issues peak alerts.
