Tennessee Valley Authority to advance Valley Pathways Study and expand region’s clean energy

In partnership with the University of Tennessee’s Baker Center, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) announced last week that it will advance a Valley Pathways Study to investigate all segments of the regional economy and drive clean energy efforts forward.

Although the TVA has experienced a decade of largely flat load growth, it experienced nearly 2.5 percent demand growth between 2020 and 2022. The federal electric utility reported that its service area would likely exceed 10 million residents under the next Census Bureau report. As a result, between 10,000-14,000 MW of new resources will likely be added by the end of the decade to address the growing power demand.

“TVA has one of the nation’s largest, most diverse, and cleanest generation portfolios, and our economic development team is staying busy because our affordable, reliable, resilient, and clean energy is the catalyst that fuels our region’s growth,” Jeff Lyash, TVA president and CEO, said. “If we want to go further, faster in our pursuit of a clean energy economy, we must work together across all sectors. Our objective is to learn and work together to create pathways to a clean energy economy.”

According to Lyash, the TVA has invested more than $18 billion in capacity expansion and base capital since 2014. Its new study will help to nail down the pace of electrification in the region and identify ways to adopt sustainable, carbon-free solutions therein, such as nuclear, renewable energy, energy storage, hydrogen, and electric vehicle usage. Such methods have, according to Lyash, already led to lower bills, cleaner air, and increased economic competitiveness.

Further, data has shown TVA thus far managed to institute carbon reductions of 57 percent against a 2005 benchmark, even without a base rate increase. The TVA’s power grid is already more than 50 percent carbon-free. However, an impending concern is that those who use electricity for home heating are expected to pay on average 10 percent more this winter.

“The Tennessee Valley is fortunate to have several possible paths for achieving its decarbonization goals,” Charles Sims, Baker Center Energy and Environment program director, said. “We look forward to working with all those involved to better understand the broader Valley’s opportunities, needs, and challenges related to these different decarbonization pathways.”