In the northern part of Mississippi, the wood-furniture industry is a dominant industry. The Industrial Assessment Center (IAC) at Mississippi State University (MSU) has conducted assessments in over thirty wood-furniture manufacturing facilities since 1994. This geographic region is served by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a quasi-public utility, and enjoys utility rate structures significantly lower than the national average. The paper begins by examining the end-point energy usages for thirty wood-furniture manufacturing facilities, a summary of data collected by the MSU IAC over an eight-year period. The rest of the paper is devoted to energy.
