The Tennessee Valley Authority has proposed 1,500 megawatts of new gas construction, derailing its goal to reach President Biden’s goals to decarbonize the electric grid by 2035, Daniel Tait highlights in a recent article for The Energy and Policy Institute. This action reignites criticism of the federal utility, who faced backlash before for its failure to embrace clean energy.
Read an excerpt below and find the whole story here.
“An environmental assessment released by TVA on its proposed gas plants did not consider any potential alternatives to new gas, such as renewable energy, battery storage, or energy efficiency and demand response. Previous analysis in TVA’s 2019 integrated resource plan (IRP) showed that TVA could forego 1,900 MW of gas-fired power plant construction by instead expanding energy efficiency and demand response programs, technologies available and cost-effective today.
Clean energy advocates argued that TVA’s proposed gas plants violated the National Environmental Protection Act when TVA failed to “mention the effects of accelerating the climate crisis” and did not consider “the environmental injustice of building a new fossil-fuel plant at Colbert, near the overburdened, predominately [sic] Black community of Red Rock/Barton, or at Paradise, near overburdened, low-wealth communities.”
TVA may have even larger ambitions for new gas at shuttered coal plants. On top of the already announced 1,500 MW of new gas, the utility’s 2019 IRP included as much as 17 GW of new gas-fired power plants, and TVA has already announced plans to close its remaining four coal plants by 2035. In its preliminary environmental impact statement on the remaining coal closures, two out of the three alternatives TVA will analyze included a substantial build-out of new gas, possibly as much as an additional 1,450 MW.
TVA’s CEO Jeffrey Lyash told E&E News that gas would continue to be a “bridge to allow more renewable energy” for the utility.
Other utilities are foregoing gas entirely as they transition out of coal. The Northern Indiana Public Service Co. (NIPSCO) has told Indiana regulators that it will achieve steep emissions reductions by 2030 by retiring its coal plants, foregoing the construction of new gas plants, and investing in renewable energy and battery storage. The company told Indiana regulators that of all the pathways it analyzed, retiring coal and skipping gas in favor of renewable energy was the one with the lowest cost to consumers.
That finding from NIPSCO comports with what experts are increasingly reporting: A study from the University of California, GridLab and Energy Innovation released earlier this year found that the U.S. can achieve 90% clean, carbon-free electricity nationwide by 2035, dependably, at no extra cost to consumers.
The Wall Street Journal also recently reported that gas plants are “already struggling to compete with wind and solar farms.””