All Reports

The Office of the Inspector General audited costs billed to the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) by Accenture Federal Services LLC (AFS) under Contract No. 14910. AFS provides enterprise architecture and information technology infrastructure services to TVA under the contract. The contract provided that work could be performed using time and material or fixed price payment terms as agreed by the parties in purchase orders (PO).

The Office of the Inspector General conducted a review of the Magnolia Combined Cycle Plant (MCC) to identify factors that could impact MCC’s organizational effectiveness. During interviews, MCC personnel revealed positive interactions with team members and most management. However, we identified issues that could negatively impact MCC’s effectiveness, if not addressed. These issues include (1) improvements needed with work packages and (2) staffing concerns.

As part of our annual audit plan, we performed an audit of costs billed to the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) by Robert E. Lamb, Inc., (Lamb) to provide architectural engineering services to assist with site selection, final programming, and schematic design for a new control center under Contract No. 13659 (formerly Contract No. 11638). Our audit objective was to determine if costs were billed in accordance with the terms of the contract.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) defines critical spares as components or parts needed to (1) prevent loss of generation or transmission, (2) prevent unsafe operating conditions, and/or (3) return critical components to service. TVA identified 45,934 critical components for its 18 natural gas plants.

We determined the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) coal plants have taken steps to reduce combustible coal dust since dedicated Combustible Dust Program funding was provided by TVA in 2018. Specifically, coal plants have dedicated combustible dust housekeeping crews to help mitigate combustible dust accumulations, and projects were completed to improve conditions at the plants.

As part of our annual audit planning, we completed a threat assessment to identify high risk cybersecurity threats that could potentially impact Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). We determined the potential impact for system intrusion through misconfigurations or unpatched systems to be high. Therefore, we included an audit of TVA Transmission Operations and Power Supply (TOPS) organization’s management of Mac® desktops and laptops as part of our 2022 audit plan. In summary, we determined MacBooks® managed by TOPS followed TVA’s configuration management policy.

The Office of the Inspector General audited the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) use of remote application and desktop virtualization client due to the risks of (1) potential system intrusion through misconfigurations and (2) continued elevated remote users during the COVID-19 pandemic. We found the configuration management control for TVA’s remote application desktop virtualization client was ineffective. However, we determined compensating access controls were in place to mitigate the risk to an overall acceptable level.

The Office of the Inspector General conducted a review of TVA Police and Emergency Management’s (TVAP&EM) organization to identify factors that could impact TVAP&EM’s organizational effectiveness. During interviews, TVAP&EM personnel revealed positive interactions within and outside TVAP&EM. However, we identified issues that have, or could, affect accomplishment of the TVAP&EM mission, if not addressed.

We are pleased to present our report for the period October 1, 2022, to March 31, 2023. In this semiannual period, our audit, evaluation, and investigative activities identified more than $41.4 million in questioned costs; funds to be put to better use; and recoveries, fees, and fines; and opportunities for TVA to improve its programs and operations.As TVA begins its 91st year, challenges lie ahead as demand increases and TVA strives to have net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

At the request of the Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) Supply Chain, we examined a company's standard design rates (i.e., indirect cost recovery rates) contained in the BWRX-300 Technology Collaboration Agreement (TCA). Our examination objective was to determine if the company's proposed indirect cost recovery rates were fairly stated.In our opinion, the company's proposed rates for the recovery of its fringe benefits, overhead, and general and administrative costs were fairly stated.