NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The nation’s largest public utility is moving forward with a plan for a new natural gas plant in Tennessee, despite warnings that the project’s environmental assessment does not comply with federal law. The Tennessee Valley Authority announced in April that it would replace the aging coal-fired Kingston Fossil Plant with gas, amid growing calls for the agency’s new board of directors to invest in renewable energy sources.
The board, which includes six of nine members appointed by President Biden, is expected to meet Thursday in Nashville, a day after a planned protest by a coalition of environmental groups demanding that the Tennessee Valley stop investing in fossil fuels.
The decommissioning of the Kingston plant, where a massive ash spill occurred in 2008, is part of the Tennessee Valley’s overall plan to reduce its dependence on coal. When analyzing alternatives to replace the plant, the company considered a new 1,500 megawatt gas plant or 1,500 megawatts of solar combined with 2,200 megawatts of battery storage. Tennessee Valley concluded that a 2027 deadline for decommissioning the current plant does not give it enough time to develop the renewable energy alternative.
The Environmental Protection Agency asked Tennessee Valley in a March 25 letter to redo several aspects of its analysis, citing “numerous” concerns about the plan to install new gas turbines. Among other things, the EPA blamed the utility for defining the Kingston project so narrowly that only the predetermined choice of a new gas plant would meet the parameters, making the company’s review process a “preordained formality.” EPA said the utility did not adequately explain the need for the 2027 shutdown or consider possible alternatives.
The EPA said Tennessee Valley’s environmental review does not meet the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires federal agencies like Tennessee Valley to assess the environmental impacts of proposed actions before making a decision.
Tennessee Valley, an independent federal agency, declined to follow EPA’s suggestion for a reconsideration. In April, the decision was made to move forward with gas — while continuing to follow an action plan that the EPA says does not take into account recent changes in the energy sector, including falling prices for renewables, billions of federal dollars for energy projects clean energy, and much more. stricter environmental regulations. The company still remains off track to meet the Biden administration’s goal of eliminating carbon pollution from power plants by 2035.
Tennessee Valley said in a statement that “we met with EPA following the letter and addressed their concerns.” EPA, meanwhile, maintained in an email to The Associated Press that its request for Tennessee Valley to revise its environmental impact statement still stands.
Dennis Wamsted, an energy analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, said even with Tennessee Valley’s 2027 deadline, “They could build twice the amount of solar they say they need and twice the amount of battery storage they say they need. ”
Other utilities are benefiting from price drops, technical improvements and government incentives to build out solar power, including in Texas and Florida.
Florida Power and Light expects solar to make up nearly 40% of its generation by 2030, Wamsted said.
“This is a major utility with, you know, the same day-to-day responsibilities as TVA,” he said. “And they are expanding solar energy as quickly as possible.”
Tennessee Valley provides power to 10 million people in seven southern states. Florida Power and Light serves more than 12 million people in that state.
Even if solar doesn’t produce power 24 hours a day, the amount of energy it produces is known and can be planned for, Wamsted said. It can also be combined with batteries that store excess energy during the day and release it back into the grid at night. That’s already happening on a large scale in California, where batteries provide more than 20% of the system’s power on many evenings, he said.
According to Wamsted, many utilities mainly resist the transition to renewable energy sources because they are unfamiliar with them.
He points to an area called the Southwest Power Pool, which runs from Oklahoma to Canada and now sees days when 60% or 70% of the system is powered by wind energy. In the late 2000s, he spoke to grid operators there who were afraid to go above 5% or 10% because they had never done so before, he says.
The Kingston project in Tennessee Valley is not the first conflict with the EPA over gas. The environmental regulator leveled many of the same criticisms a year ago when the company decided to build a new 1,450-megawatt natural gas plant at the coal-fired Cumberland Fossil Plant. The Sierra Club and other groups are denouncing this decision, as well as an earlier decision to install gas turbines at a retired coal-fired power plant in New Johnsonville. Both lawsuits allege that Tennessee Valley’s environmental assessments are perfunctory and against the law — similar to the EPA’s criticism of the Kingston plant.
Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, a frequent critic of Tennessee Valley, said in a statement to The Associated Press that the company should listen to the EPA.
“The National Environmental Policy Act is not optional – it is the foundation of our environmental protection and community engagement laws,” he said.
Although Tennessee Valley has not embraced renewables, the utility still says most of its energy is carbon-free, as 42% comes from nuclear and another 9% from hydropower. Purchased wind and solar energy make up another 4% of the energy portfolio. The company currently produces 1 megawatt of its own solar energy and has 20 megawatts of battery storage. It estimates that the new gas plant will produce 1.68 million tonnes of greenhouse gases per year, noting that this is a sharp drop from Kingston’s current emissions.
Nationally, coal provided about 16% of U.S. electricity last year, up from about 45% in 2010. Natural gas supplies about 43% of U.S. electricity, with the rest coming from nuclear power and renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and hydropower .
The Tennessee Valley Authority has said it plans to build 10,000 megawatts of solar power by 2035. Wamsted claims this is too far in the future.
“It should be, ‘We’re going to build as much solar as we can now,’ because that’s what we really need to worry about now,” he said. “We won’t have to worry anymore in ten years. or in fifteen years.”
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Jonathan Mattise contributed to this report.