The public has never been more engaged in the minutiae of the Tennessee Valley Authority's energy planning as it works on a delayed plan to meet growing electricity demand while achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Brian Child, TVA's vice president for enterprise planning, said the federal utility's customers have become more familiar with virtual meeting platforms like Zoom since the last integrated resource plan in 2019.
This time around, as the plan was pushed from 2024 to 2025 in response to drastic new carbon-cutting rules from the Environmental Protection Agency, TVA is getting more feedback and questions from the public in virtual and in-person meetings.
"We've definitely seen great participation from the public in those meetings, both just in terms of the numbers of people who are there, but also just in terms of the volume of questions that we're getting and the breadth of questions that we're getting, which is great," Child told Knox News. "That's what we're after."
But the comments TVA is after are mostly unflattering as it rapidly builds natural gas plants to the dismay of environmental groups and some elected officials. To replace coal and account for a growing population, TVA is in the middle of building eight gas plants, more than any other U.S. utility this decade.
During a listening session at a July 16 meeting of TVA's Regional Energy Resource Council in Knoxville, one speaker went as far as calling TVA's long-term reliance on fossil fuels "negligent homicide."
"We, and TVA, have no morally defensible choice but to quit using fossil fuels as soon as we possibly can," said volunteer climate activist John Todd Waterman in prepared remarks before the council.
Waterman and other activists, as well as Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, who oversees TVA in the Senate, urged the council to push the utility toward an ambitious plan for 100% carbon-free energy by 2035. That goal, Markey said in a statement read by a legislative aide, would align with the Biden administration's climate platform.
"We need to be meeting our national clean energy goals, not missing them. Ignoring the climate crisis won't make it go away. It will only make it worse," Markey said. "Even when TVA had the option to replace retired coal plants with cleaner alternatives, it has chosen to replace them with expensive gas-powered plants."
TVA executives including CEO Jeff Lyash and COO Don Moul have argued natural gas is a necessary bridge to renewable energy. They say gas plants are more dependable than utility-scale solar and battery storage, and they prize having a diverse mix of power, led by three nuclear plants.
The 20-member Regional Energy Resource Council is composed of government officials, experts and members of advocacy groups who guide TVA's decisions about how to generate electricity. It first convened in 2013, and its meetings are open to the public.
The council has heard strongly worded critiques of TVA, such as from families of workers who say their loved ones became sick or died cleaning up the utility's 2008 coal ash spill at the Kingston plant.
The council is one of several groups steering TVA on its 2025 integrated resource plan, a draft of which could be released as soon as this fall.
In new TVA plan, activists see a chance to change course
TVA will spend $15 billion on new electricity generation over the next three years, mostly to build large natural gas plants. The utility has employed language that downplays the role of gas in its energy mix for decades to come.
A slide in a presentation made by TVA for the council meeting describes the 1,450-megawatt gas plant under construction in Cumberland City, Tennessee, as the "Cumberland Energy Solution." It says the Kingston coal plant will be replaced by the "Kingston Energy Complex – battery storage, solar and natural gas."
The power of those three sources will be 100 megawatts, 3 to 4 megawatts, and 1,500 megawatts, respectively.
TVA's new plan will model six difference scenarios for how electricity demand could grow in its seven-state region by 2050. The two biggest factors in how much electricity TVA will have to produce and how are economic growth and carbon regulations.
Several speakers at the listening session suggested TVA was delaying the plan until after the presidential election in November to see whether the EPA's regulations stay in place. TVA said the election had nothing to do with the delay.
"The IRP delay was not political in any way," Child said. "It was for the additional analysis and engagement with the working group ... I make no projections around what the courts and others will do."
Activists who spoke to the Regional Energy Resource Council recast the plan as a chance for TVA to embrace renewables, including rooftop solar, to meet demand with the aid of federal tax credits offered in the Inflation Reduction Act. Hydroelectric power was 9% of the energy TVA created in 2023, while wind and solar were only 4%.
"TVA has been dragging its feet for so long on bold renewable energy planning that time is quickly running out," said Gaby Sarri-Tobar, an energy justice campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity. "This IRP is TVA's chance to reverse course and model how it can ramp up distributed renewable energy and phase out fossil fuels consistent with climate science."
Marquita Bradshaw, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Tennessee and member of the council, urged TVA to hold public meetings in venues with nearby bus stops and to provide print material on the proposed plan to senior centers and libraries.
After TVA publishes its draft integrated resource plan later this year, it will begin a 60-day public comment period with several online meetings and in-person meetings in 10 cities across seven states.
A bill introduced to the House in March by Rep. Tim Burchett, a Republican from Knoxville, and Rep. Steve Cohen, a Democrat from Memphis, would boost transparency by requiring TVA to establish an office of public participation and create a public comment period 100 days or more before the release of the draft integrated resource plan.
The bill, which is sitting in a House subcommittee, would require TVA to release details on the assumptions its planners made while creating models and describe how public input informed the plan.
Daniel Dassow is a growth and development reporter focused on technology and energy. Phone 423-637-0878. Email daniel.dassow@knoxnews.com.
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