Powering Music City and beyond, NES is leading Middle Tennessee into the renewable revolution 

Founded in 1939, Nashville Electric Service (NES) is the public utility powerhouse supplying electricity to over 460,000 customers across Middle Tennessee. Covering over 700 square miles of service territory across 5900 miles of distribution and transmission lines, NES powers the entirety of Nashville and Davidson County, as well as parts of the six surrounding counties, and its approach to customer service is unmatched. Whether administering a fast response to emergencies and outages, engineering sustainable solar solutions or helping customers afford their monthly bills, the company is committed to providing the best possible service for all its customers in every corner of Music City. Powered by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), NES leads at the fore of energy excellence, electrifying the state whilst empowering Tennessee’s contribution to the overall energy transition with its exciting solar project portfolio. 

Appointed President and CEO of NES in 2022, Teresa Broyles-Aplin is employing her award-winning leadership to move the company into the future. Having served as NES’ Chief Financial Officer for 16 years prior, Teresa brings a wealth of merger, acquisition and public accounting experience to the board, taking a transformational approach centered around innovation and the increased demand for renewable energy. 

“NES is committed to providing safe, reliable and affordable power to all its customers, both commercial and residential. Our customers and coworkers are our top priorities. We believe that valuing every coworker creates a best-in-class customer experience,” Teresa begins. “We are constantly examining ways to innovatively enhance the customer experience. We’re adopting new technologies like automation to help us maintain reliability, launching upgraded customer tools, improving our aging infrastructure and dedicating efforts to areas with reliability issues. We are always looking to and planning for the future. We monitor grid security, continue vegetation management efforts, focus on equipment distribution maintenance, and consider EV demand issues on the grid. Our customers deserve to live comfortably and know that when it’s needed, power will be there.” 

Aligning with this strategy, NES is constantly investing in new technologies to further improve its operational capabilities. “NES recently underwent a transformational upgrade of systems, technology and infrastructure to grow and evolve with Nashville to better meet our customers’ needs,” she continues. “The biggest advantage to NES that ultimately benefits the customer is the visibility of the data in a more user-friendly and more accessible format. The new enhancements include more flexible account management options with new self-service features, a more streamlined automated phone system and quicker service restoration on disconnected accounts. NES made this investment on behalf of our customers with no direct impact on their power bill. These enhancements have improved customer service at every level,” she explains. 

“Given our region’s rapid growth and the threat of severe weather, reliability and resiliency are top priorities for NES. We’re exploring advanced technologies like self-healing systems, battery storage, and microgrids to strengthen the grid. These systems are designed to detect outages and reroute power automatically, minimizing downtime. Potential battery site locations are currently being evaluated, with a focus on areas that experience frequent outages or are harder to reach.” 

From musicians to doctors, entrepreneurs to the folks making it all happen, Nashville is a city of stars – one that requires reliable and sustainable energy to shine. Now more than ever, the demand for renewable energy resources is high, not merely for environmental preservation but to guarantee a robust energy infrastructure that can be sustained into the future. In response to this shift, NES transformed an unassuming landfill site into Nashville’s first ever community solar park, Music City Solar, highlighting the true power of community. Encompassing a dazzling 17,020 state-of-the-art solar panels, the project has been a monumental step in Nashville’s clean energy journey and has generated over 17 million kWh of energy so far. To empower its customers to join the renewable revolution, NES has also introduced a range of incentives available to those wishing to take advantage of its sustainable solutions. 

“As customers desired more alternative energy options, NES developed Music City Solar, Nashville’s first community solar park in 2018,” Teresa says. “Since then, through our partnership with TVA, NES has created the option to have cleaner energy as part of the energy mix through a program that allows us to develop five percent of our generation needs through renewable resources. NES is developing a 160-megawatt solar farm in partnership with Silicon Ranch, a local solar developer. Additionally, NES launched two customer-facing solar programs – NESolar Savings and NESolar Connect – that provide incentives and income opportunities for customers who adopt solar technology.” 

Whilst doing good for the environment, these initiatives also help NES’ customers to give back to their local communities, providing the opportunity to purchase solar panel subscriptions for themselves to cut costs or for other people via the Solar Angel donation program. Having introduced its solar services just seven years ago, NES has never compromised on its own sustainable practices.

“Sustainability has long been part of NES’ operations, from efficient materials management to fleet electrification,” Teresa affirms. “In 2022, NES completed a materiality report to help us guide future efforts and hired dedicated staff to lead these initiatives. Recently we added electric and hybrid vehicles to our fleet, supported local tree-planting programs, partnered with community organizations for sustainability education and explored how to integrate sustainability metrics into project planning.” 

As the world moves towards a more sustainable future, NES is optimistic for the years ahead: for its customers, its workers and the wider energy transition. The company is set to continue evolving and adapting to the changing market, pioneering new technological innovations and clean energy advancements. 

“In 2025, our teams are embracing innovation even more than ever. Our focus on grid modernization and improving customer experience through improved operations, system reliability, and customer solutions will shape the remainder of the year and set the stage for years to come,” Teresa reveals. “Enhancements in technology will continue to improve the way our coworkers serve our customers, and NES will continue to evolve along with the utility industry. We will use our learnings from a partnership with NREL and Oak Ridge National Labs where we are developing a digital twin of our system. This will give us the ability to analyze real time impacts of new technologies on our system and better plan for system growth and electrification, as well as where to deploy new technologies. Lastly, we recently upgraded our system operations control room to allow us to integrate distribution energy resources (DERS), as we see virtual power plants likely becoming more common. 

“NES sits at the intersection of growth and innovation in Nashville. We are constantly investing in infrastructure to stay ahead of the region’s growth,” Teresa finishes. “We’ve built a new substation to help power the downtown area and are in the process of constructing another. We are also in the middle of a major streetlight overhaul to install LED lighting across the city. Bottom line: we are constantly thinking about better ways to power Music City and improve the overall experience for our customers.”  

www.nespower.com