Displaying items by tag: tva gas plants
Editorial: TVA executes sharp electric rate increase amid lack of transparency
A protestor holds a sign during a 2021 demonstration against TVA’s plans for continued fossil fuel use outside the federal utility’s headquarters in Knoxville. Thomas Fraser/Hellbender Press
KNOXVILLE — On Thursday, August 22, the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) Board of Directors will meet in Florence, Alabama to authorize a 5.25 percent electric power rate increase without any public documentation showing why the increase is needed or how those additional revenues will be spent. This rate increase amounts to approximately a staggering half-a-billion-dollar increase for Tennessee Valley ratepayers. Only in the Tennessee Valley could a major utility raise rates without public scrutiny of financial documents.
The 5.25 percent rate increase coupled with last year’s 4.5 percent electric rate increase is strategically set just below a 10 percent threshold that would trigger renegotiation of hundreds of power supply agreements with local utilities. But even with this rate increase, TVA is still racking up debt at a rate not seen in decades.
Based on documents over a year old at this point, we can only guess what is driving TVA’s current financial woes: the largest buildout of fossil gas in the country this decade. These new fossil gas pipelines and power plants aren’t cheap, and TVA’s plan to increase reliance on gas is risky. Families and businesses across the Valley will see increased bills when gas prices rise again and as these new gas power plants become obsolete in just a few short years.
Tennessee Valley Authority faces a push to get greener and more transparent
Nanette Mahler, left, and Tracy O’Neill walk along Macon Wall Road in Cheatham County, Tennessee, near the site of a proposed Tennessee Valley Authority gas power plant project. Local backlash against the proposal comes as the federal utility faces bipartisan legislation in Congress seeking to boost transparency in its planning process and scrutiny of TVA’s anemic renewable power growth compared to other utilities. Robert Zullo/States Newsroom
TVA ‘clearly a laggard’ in renewable energy
This article was originally published by Tennessee Lookout.
ASHLAND CITY — When he heard about the sale, Kerry McCarver was perplexed.
In 2020, the mayor of rural Cheatham County discovered that the Tennessee Valley Authority bought about 280 acres of rolling farmland “in the middle of nowhere” in his county, which lies just west of Nashville and is home to about 42,000 people.
He asked another county official who formerly worked for the TVA, the nation’s largest public power company, to find out what it planned to do with the land.
The answer they got was “future use,” and they speculated a solar farm might be in the works.
“It’s kind of the last we thought about it,” McCarver said during an interview in his office in May. “Then a year ago last summer, TVA called here needing a place to have a public meeting.”
The authority was now proposing a 900-megawatt natural gas-fired power plant, battery storage, pipelines and other associated infrastructure for the site, which came as a shock to McCarver and many other locals who felt it was wholly inappropriate for the area.
- tva
- tva clean energy
- tva board
- tva board meeting
- tva bull run
- tva coal fossil plant
- tva kingston
- kerry mccarver
- tva fossil plant
- tva gas plants
- cheatham county
- jeff lyash
- duke energy
- sierra club climate change
- southern alliance for clean energy
- stephen smith
- tennessee lookout
- tva governance transparency
- southern environmental law center
- energy alabama