The Tennessee Valley Authority has shut down money-losing coal power plants. Now it is taking another tentative step forward by offering to let some of its customer companies generate some renewable energy on their own. Cue screaming from the Right. Note that TVA, which is publicly owned, is required to sell power to these private companies for them to make profits on, and cannot have its own distribution network for users.
The Tennessee Valley Authority(TVA) is seeking public input on a draft Environmental Assessment that considers the environmental impacts of enabling local power companies (LPCs) generate a portion of their load to meet customer needs.
Under the proposed power supply flexibility option, the 138 LPCs who have currently entered into Long-Term Partnership Agreements with TVA have the option to reduce the amount of energy they buy from TVA by generating up to 5% of their average energy needs and put the locally generated energy on their distribution system for customers’ use.
Locally generated energy could take the form of solar power plants, wind farms, small biomass facilities, fuel cells or other smaller forms of distributed generation.
Enabling power supply flexibility supports TVA’s 2019 Integrated Resource Plan and the utility’s strategic financial plan. Both plans anticipate a future in which distributed generation will continue to grow to help reduce carbon emissions.
TVA says it already has nearly 60% carbon-free energy generation and increasing local generation provides opportunity to improve the region’s carbon position.
Please note that due to current federal requirements for employees to work remotely to prevent the spread ofCOVID-19, TVA recommends that the public submit comments by email or online to ensure timely review and consideration.
TVA must receive comments by May 4, 2020. Details of the EA including how to submit comments are available here.
Flexibility Proposal
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has prepared a draft Environmental Assessment (EA) regarding flexible power generation options that would be available to its local power company customers that have entered into Long-Term Partnership Agreements with TVA.
The Long-Term Partnership Agreement, first offered in August 2019, includes provision for those local power companies who adopt the agreement to meet a portion of their power needs through their own generating sources. As of April 3, 2020, 138 of the local power companies served by TVA have adopted this Agreement.
In February 2020, the TVA Board of Directors approved a set of principles to guide local power companies interested in adding flexible generation, pending completion of appropriate environmental review in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act. The approved principles resulted from structured engagement with local power companies and reflect their feedback to ensure the outcome provides a viable solution to their needs.
The draft EA evaluates the potential environmental and socioeconomic impacts of two alternatives, taking no action and implementing the power supply flexibility option.
Submitting Comments
The draft EA is available for public review and comment through May 4, 2020. Please note that due to current federal requirements for TVA employees working remotely, TVA recommends that the public submit comments electronically to ensure their timely review and consideration.
Any comments received, including names and addresses, will become part of the administrative record and will be available for public inspection.
Comments may be submitted via email to mshigdon@tva.gov or by mail to the address below.
Related Documents
Contact
For more information about the environmental review contact:
Matthew Higdon
NEPA Specialist
mshigdon@tva.gov
400 West Summit Hill Drive, WT 11B
Knoxville, TN 37902
TVA POWER SUPPLY FLEXIBILITY PROPOSAL DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT
Chapter 1 – Purpose and Need for Action
1.1 Proposed Action
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is proposing to provide enhanced power supply flexibility to local power companies (LPCs) within their respective Power Service Area that have entered into Long-Term Partnership (LTP) agreements with TVA. Under the terms of the LTP resolution approved by the TVA Board of Directors in August 2019, LPCs that enter into an LTP agreement (“Valley Partners”) would be offered the option to generate a portion of their customers’ power requirements.
1.2Purpose and Needfor Action
TVA is a self-financed, wholly owned corporate agency of the United States that serves a region that consists of parts of seven southeastern states. As a public power entity, TVA has no shareholders and receives no tax dollars. Under the TVA Act of 1933, as amended (the TVA Act), Congress charged TVA with advancing the social and economic welfare of the residents of the Tennessee Valley region. One of the most important ways that TVA fulfills its congressional mandate is by providing reliable, affordable electric power to its 154 municipal and cooperative LPCs. LPCs take delivery of electricity generated and transmitted by TVA and perform the distribution function for their approximately 10 million retail consumers of electricity. TVA also sells power to 58 directly served retail customers with large or unusual power requirements. TVA is mandated to provide power at rates as low as feasible.
Some of those special customers have been aluminum smelters.
Tennessee Valley Authority — Wikipedia
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned corporation in the United States created by congressional charter on May 18, 1933, to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development to the Tennessee Valley, a region particularly affected by the Great Depression. Senator George W. Norris (R-Nebraska) was a strong sponsor of this project. TVA was envisioned not only as a provider, but also as a regional economic development agency that would use federal experts and rural electrification to help modernize the rural region's economy and society.
Yes, Republicans aren't what they were.
TVA provides electricity to approximately ten million people through a diverse portfolio that includes nuclear, coal-fired, natural gas-fired, hydroelectric, and renewable generation. TVA sells its power to 154 local power utilities, 5 direct industrial and institutional customers, and 12 area utilities.[6] In addition to power generation, TVA provides flood control with 29 hydroelectric dams. Resulting lakes and other areas also allow for recreational activities. The TVA provides navigation and land management along rivers within its region of operation.[4] TVA also assists governments and private companies on economic development projects.[4]
Then coal, nuclear, and now renewables.
In 2009, to gain more access to sustainable, green energy, TVA signed 20-year power purchase agreements with Maryland-based CVP Renewable Energy Co. and Chicago-based Invenergy Wind LLC for electricity generated by wind farms.[27]
In April 2011 TVA reached an agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), four state governments, and three environmental groups to drastically reduce pollution and carbon emissions.[30] Under the terms of the agreement, TVA was required to retire at least 18 of its 59 coal-fired units by the end of 2018, and install scrubbers in several others or convert them to make them cleaner, at a cost of $25 billion by 2021.[30] As a result, TVA closed several of its coal-fired power plants in the 2010s, converting some of them to natural gas. These include John Sevier in 2012, Shawnee Unit 10 in 2014, Widows Creek in 2015, Colbert in 2016, Johnsonville and Paradise Units 1 and 2 in 2017, and Allen in 2018.[31]
Given continued economic pressure on the coal industry, the TVA board defied President Donald Trump and voted in February 2019 to close two aging coal plants, Paradise 3 and Bull Run. TVA chief executive Bill Johnson said the decision was not about coal per se, but rather "about keeping rates as low as feasible." The TVA stated that decommissioning the two plants would reduce its carbon output by about 4.4% annually.[34]
TVA closes last unit at Paradise coal plant in Kentucky
February 4, 2020 — The Tennessee Valley Authority shut down the last operating unit at its Paradise Fossil Plant in Western Kentucky over the weekend, ending nearly 57 years of coal-fired generation at what was once one of the largest coal plants in TVA’s fleet.
Despite opposition from President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the TVA board voted 5-2 last February to retire the last Paradise unit, along with the Bull Run Steam Plant near Oak Ridge by 2023. Due to a turbine rotor problem at Paradise and the relatively stagnant power demand for TVA this year, the utility decided to shutter Paradise Unit 3 this month rather than continue to invest in trying to keep the aging power facility online.
TVA determined that it could generate or buy cheaper and cleaner power from other sources rather than continuing to rely upon its coal-fired unit on the Green River in Western Kentucky. The other two coal-fired units at Paradise were retired in 2017 and were replaced by a $1 billion combined-cycle natural gas plant which is capable of producing 1,025 megawatts of power.
It still has six smaller coal-fired plants.