Clarksville, Tennessee-based CDE Lightband has been making sustainable strides in its community. In October 2023, it received the 2023 Solar Champion Award from the Tennessee Solar Energy Industries Association (TenneSEIA). The honor, presented during the Tennessee Valley Solar + Storage Conference in Chattanooga, recognizes individuals or companies demonstrating leadership in support of solar energy deployment.
In this case, the company’s efforts to provide electricity, digital television, phone, and internet services to Clarksville-area residents were in the spotlight. CDE Lightband is currently connected to more than 80,000 businesses and households.
Photo Courtesy CDE Lightband
According to its 2022–2023 Annual Report, CDE Lightband is the 41st largest public power utility in the nation.
Its website says its Fiber Optic Network keeps electric costs low, allowing the company to focus on products and constant innovation. According to the Fiber to the Home Council, CDE Lightband’s network increases home values by approximately 3% or an average of more than $5,000 per home.
“I want our customers to know that we are leaders in our industry and are bringing things into the system to improve system reliability and resiliency,” Brian Taylor, CDE Lightband’s general manager, said in an interview with Seven States Power Corporation. “Everything that we do — every single decision, whether it’s bringing in a new outage management system or being intentional in our social media communications — every decision is made to do our job more efficiently and at less cost to the customers.”
Photo Courtesy CDE Lightband
The company strives to demonstrate leadership in Tennessee’s solar energy community, including perseverance against setbacks with its solar projects. When an original 15-megawatt site had topography issues, CDE Lightband moved swiftly to find two new sites with comparable megawatt compatibility. The resulting new projects, including two solar farms, are in partnership with Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) FlexProgram and Silicon Ranch and will power around 1,080 average-sized homes’ entire energy usage for a year, according to the city of Clarksville.
The company said it has also pushed for improvements to the TVA’s Flex Program so its customers “benefit more directly through a number of educational initiatives.”
“CDE Lightband is one of the most forward-thinking LPCs in the country, especially considering the role it embraces as an engine for local economic development, thanks in large part to Brian Taylor and his team, who are working daily to serve the needs of their rapidly growing community,” Matt Kisber, Silicon Ranch co-founder and chairman, said in a statement. “We are proud to partner with CDE Lightband to help meet the high bar its leadership has set, and its customers have come to expect, as the long-term owner and operator of these solar projects which will provide reliable, cost-effective energy.”
Photo Courtesy Silicon Ranch
Ultimately, CDE Lightband aims to change the future of power for many Tennesseans, cutting costs and lowering carbon emissions. “Our current solar projects are just a few of the ways we are helping improve the impact of electric power generation on the environment,” Taylor said in a statement.
