Tennessee Valley Authority

Due to the importance of the clearance procedure to plant personnel safety, and in response to recent fatalities resulting from clearance violations, we initiated a review of TVA’s coal operations’ clearance procedure. We determined the clearance procedure was being performed for work requiring...

Due to concerns with the high number of hearing loss claims filed by employees, we performed an evaluation of the actions taken to minimize TVA’s financial exposure for hearing loss claims. We determined some Hearing Conservation Program requirements were not met, including: (1) personal noise...

We evaluated Nuclear Oversight to determine if the work environment was conducive to raising concerns without fear of retaliation. We found the work environment within Nuclear Oversight is not always conducive to raising concerns without fear of retaliation. Specifically, while all Nuclear Oversight...

The Office of the Inspector General conducted a review of Sequoyah Nuclear Plant’s (SQN) Site Security (SS) organization to identify operational and cultural strengths and risks that could impact SQN SS’s organizational effectiveness. Our report identified strengths within SQN SS related to (1)...

The Office of the Inspector General audited the controls for key Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) spreadsheets to determine if the controls are sufficiently defined, appropriately designed, and operating effectively. The audit’s scope was information technology general controls for the SOX critical spreadsheets...

The Office of the Inspector General reviewed TVA’s three operating system baselines and how they are applied to the tools used to deploy and manage TVA systems. In summary, we found TVA management aligned two of the three server operating system baselines with the identified best practices and had...

The Office of the Inspector General conducted a review of Supply Chain’s Sourcing organization to identify operational and cultural strengths and risks that could impact Sourcing’s organizational effectiveness. Our report identified strengths within Sourcing related to (1) teamwork, (2) direct...

The Office of the Inspector General audited the network architecture of a nuclear facility to determine if the network architecture and assets in use to support a specific nuclear plant’s business and operational functions are compliant with TVA policies, procedures and identified best practices. In...

We evaluated TVA’s administration of Coal Quality Adjustment Reports (CQAR) to determine if the Coal Quality Adjustment Reports were accurately calculated in accordance with the contract terms. We determined CQARs were not always calculated in accordance with the applicable contractual terms, and as...

The Tennessee Valley Authority estimates the dispatch costs for coal and gas on a combination of elements including fuel pricing, physical operating characteristics, estimates of variable operating and maintenance costs, and other variables. Since heat rates are one of the primary physical...