Tennessee Valley Authority is deciding how to change its power system, and the agency wants to know what the public thinks: stick with its current path? Push more solar power? Emphasize system resilience and flexibility? Or aim for cost-cutting above all?

“TVA is very quickly closing in on its 86th birthday,” Brian Child, the agency’s director of resource planning, said Feb. 27 at a public meeting on the draft Integrated Resource Plan. The federally-created utility’s mission hasn’t changed from the start — providing affordable power, being a steward of natural resources, and promoting economic development throughout the Tennessee Valley, he said.

The plan looks out for the next 20 years, but it’s updated every four or five years because technology and consumer preferences change rapidly, Child said.

The IRP lays out all combinations of six possible scenarios and five agency strategies. The scenarios are: TVA’s current “base case” projections, an economic downturn, growth of power needs, a strong push to cut carbon emissions, rapid development of distributed generation, and opposition to extending nuclear plant operation.

The proposed strategies are: the “base case” of current assumptions, promotion of distributed generation, an emphasis on system resilience, a push to even out power demand at all hours, and promotion of renewable energy.

Results appear to lean toward keeping current assumptions and plans, but that’s what TVA wants the public to consider or dispute.

How to comment

Laura Campbell, TVA vice president of integrated resource planning, said the IRP revision started a year ago with other public meetings to define its scope. She, Child and other TVA staff spoke to about three dozen people at the Cansler YMCA, just off Magnolia Avenue. TVA will hold four more public meetings on the draft IRP around its territory by March 26, but no more near Knoxville.

The agency will take public comments through April 8, Child said. Once those are considered, a final version will be issued this summer.

The draft plan can be read at www.tva.com/irp. Comments can be submitted through that web page; by email at IRP@tva.gov; or mailed to Hunter Hydas, IRP Project Manager, Tennessee Valley Authority, 1101 Market Street, MR-3C, Chattanooga, TN 37402.

Factors and forecasts

The agency’s plans focus on increasing flexibility, with the addition of smaller-scale and localized “distributed generation” and renewable power sources, Child said.

TVA serves 9.7 million residents in seven states through 154 local power companies and 58 directly-served large industrial customers. It generates electricity from nuclear plants, natural gas, coal, hydroelectric plants, solar and wind farms, in descending order.

Though overall power demand is expected to drop, all scenarios call for some new generating capacity as older facilities shut down, Child said. Energy efficiency is similar in all scenarios, he said.

TVA does see a need to promote energy efficiency for lower-income residents, due to the large amount of low-quality housing within the agency’s service area, Hydas said.

Child said a “substantial portion” of that new power is likely to be solar, but none from wind or water.

Only one scenario calls for a new nuclear plant, and retirement of more coal plants is expected, he said. A small modular reactor is tentatively proposed near Oak Ridge. Four of TVA’s seven existing nuclear units will need to be relicensed between 2033 and 2036, within the 20-year study window of this plan.

The rival priorities are evaluated for their trade-offs: cost vs. efficiency vs. resilience vs. environmental concerns, Child said.

The draft Environmental Impact Statement, federally required to accompany the IRP, projects long-term decreases in emissions, water use and coal ash in all scenarios. Expanding renewable sources and system resilience would cut pollution further, but would require more land. Sticking with current plans would have the greatest negative environmental impact, except for land use, the EIS says.

Background moves

A study issued in October by the University of Tennessee’s Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy recommended charging all customers similar prices for power, but varying that charge as generation costs vary; promoting “smart meters,” which give detailed information on each customer’s consumption pattern; and exploring small-scale, local, renewable generation and power storage to improve flexibility and redundancy. All those proposals are reflected in various IRP scenarios.

The draft IRP and EIS were released Feb. 15. One day earlier, the TVA board voted to close the Paradise and Bull Run coal-fired power plants in 2020 and 2023 respectively. Their long start-up time and need to run near full capacity to be efficient make coal plants less practical than other generation methods today, outgoing TVA President and CEO Bill Johnson said.

TVA closed five coal plants from 1966 to 2016, including three since 2012. It still operates six; the loss of Paradise and Bull Run will drop that to four. Even so, over the next decade the share of TVA’s power coming from coal is expected to remain nearly steady at 17 percent over the next decade. Johnson said no further coal-plant closures are under discussion, and the agency is expected to keep using coal until at least 2050.

Also on Feb. 14 TVA hired Jeffrey Lyash as its new president and CEO. He is expected to replace Johnson within a few months, though there is likely to be some overlap.

The management change could signal a shift in TVA’s priorities. While its dependence on coal generation has steadily declined, activists have pressed it to do more in promoting renewable energy, particularly solar power.

Lyash has been in charge of Ontario Power Generation since July 2015. The public utility company, which provides more than half of the Canadian province’s power, phased out coal generation in 2014. It relies on water, nuclear and solar power for generation that’s 99 percent free of greenhouse gas emissions, according to the company.