The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) says some ultraviolet light systems can help schools and businesses cut COVID-19 transmission, and the utility has cash incentives to add these UV-C lights to HVAC systems in the TVA region that includes north Alabama.
The incentives of $30 per ton of the system’s output first became available in June, a TVA spokesman said, but the agency now says “there’s an opportunity for this technology everywhere.”
TVA began studying the technology before the virus exploded across the country. “We thought it was going to be great for places like schools to cut down on transmission of things like the flu and all those viruses kids get every fall,” TVA engineer Jason Snyder said today. “We were also thinking of areas like reception areas.”
Now, schools, small businesses, reception areas and other places people gather “have the ability to kill more of the virus as it gets into the air stream as this is a duct-installed system,” Snyder said. “As air goes through that HVAC duct, we’re going to basically keep the virus from replicating. It deactivates the virus as it goes through this light.”
The light emitted by these bulbs is blue, and it is harmful to people if they are directly exposed. The bulbs need to be installed in duct work by licensed professionals. “It’s not a do-it-yourself job,” Snyder said, and TVA has a Preferred Partners Network to provide service eligible for the incentives. Contractors can join that network by applying to the utility.
“They’re telling us they bought enough of these lights before the pandemic really hit,” Snyder said of companies in the network. “They saw it was going to be a valuable technology, and a lot of them made the gamble that customers would want to put these into their systems at some point.”
There will be a shortage eventually, Snyder said, so TVA is hoping interested customers will install the systems as soon as possible. It would be “a perfect technology for schools,” he said.
Snyder said the UV light will not end the need for wiping surfaces where the virus can land, but he said the World Health Organization now considers the virus airborne.
“This is one of those solutions that can run passively any time the HVAC unit is running and remove it from the air stream,” he said. Learn more about it in the video below and here.
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July 18, 2020 at 04:26AM
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TVA says this UV light will kill COVID-19, offers incentives - AL.com
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