33. Renew TN: Clean and Affordable Energy for Tennesseeans

Brady Watson is the Civic Engagement Coordinator with Southern Alliance for Clean Energy or SACE for short. Brady is based out of Knoxville and is responsible for organizing around ballot initiatives and utility issues that may impact climate and energy policy. He is in charge of a Tennessee state-wide campaign where they want to see lower utility bills for Tennesseans most in need; increase access to solar energy, and put the “public” back in public power.

A part of this large campaign is a more localized campaign called ACT on KUB - KUB is The Knoxville Utilities Board (KUB) - this is the main utility provider in Knoxville. They have been a long-time, trusted community partner, yet the rules governing KUB have facilitated a drift away from the people KUB serves. Here’s what they’ve done lately:

• Increased its mandatory monthly electrical fixed fee from $6 in 2010 to $20.50 in 2020. All utility fixed fees on customers' bills now exceed $85 per month.
  
• Rushed signing a 20-year long-term contract with power provider TVA, with no meaningful opportunity for public comment even though customers’ dollars are on the line, which has put customers at risk.
  
• Spent hundreds of thousands of customers’ dollars on public relations consultants to boost KUB’s image, even though KUB is a public-power monopoly without competition
  

With Brady we talk about KUB and what they have done lately, impacts and where KUB gets their energy from, actions they’ve done to get the public involved, and other energy related campaigns SACE is working on in TN.

Contact and connect with Brady: brady@cleanenergy.org

Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE): https://cleanenergy.org/

ACT on KUB: https://www.actonkub.org/

RenewTN: https://www.renewtn.org/

Register to Vote: https://govotetn.gov/ https://vote.gov/

Background Music Credits:

https://www.youtube.com/c/mbbmusic

https://soundcloud.com/mbbofficial

https://www.instagram.com/mbb_music