TVA’s Board of Administrators refused to carry a public listening to on TVA’s 2024 draft IRP, so we held our personal.
Maggie Shober and Bryan Jacob | February 2, 2024
| Tennessee, Utilities
Built-in Useful resource Planning (IRP) is the method that almost all utilities use to make vital choices about the way forward for our electrical energy system. Public hearings for skilled testimony and public enter in entrance of impartial regulators are key parts in IRP processes at utilities throughout the nation and are the norm.
However at TVA, Issues Look a Little Totally different
TVA is structured in another way than different utilities: initially “constructed for and owned by the folks,” TVA is the nation’s solely federally-owned utility. But TVA has one of many least-public IRPs within the nation. TVA is a self-regulated federal monopoly — the TVA Board of Administrators is meant to function the utility’s regulatory physique — however all info the Board receives comes by means of TVA employees. The TVA Board has no impartial employees like different regulators. Utilities throughout the area would certainly like the choice to filter the knowledge their regulators hear, however that’s not the best way state utility regulation is designed. Besides at TVA.
On January 25, in Nashville, Tennessee, 4 specialists offered testimony on TVA’s IRP course of and contents, and members of the general public crafted suggestions for TVA by means of breakout teams. Click on right here to observe a recording of your entire Listening to. The suggestions from specialists and the general public might be packaged and delivered to the TVA Board.
The listening to was kicked off with a video assertion from Congressman Steve Cohen (who represents a district of Memphis) wherein he introduced a invoice he’s getting ready that may require TVA to be extra clear and inclusive in its useful resource planning efforts — exactly what we’ve been advocating for.
The primary session of the listening to mimicked the model of a public listening to a regulatory fee would ‘sometimes’ maintain when reviewing a utility’s IRP. 4 specialists in power modeling and coverage offered evaluation and findings on TVA’s power planning. Under are some highlights from every presenter.
TVA’s Planning Course of is “Merely a Thought Train” – Liz Stanton
Dr. Liz Stanton of Utilized Economics Clinic is an skilled with an intensive observe document of testimony on power plans. In her presentation, Liz defined how the TVA planning course of differs from that accomplished in different jurisdictions: since TVA is a self-regulated monopoly (not like different utilities which can be regulated by a Public Utility Fee/Public Service Fee), the TVA Board is meant to manage TVA.
Stanton additionally defined in her testimony that the TVA’s planning course of doesn’t even end in a concrete ‘plan.’ It’s “merely a thought train,” in response to Stanton, which leads to ranges of power sources which can be basically meaningless.
“The dearth of a most popular plan eliminates accountability from utility planning.” – Liz Stanton
Over-Reliance on Fuel Results in Skyrocketing Payments – Peter Hubbard
The second skilled, Peter Hubbard, of Georgia Clear Vitality Options, uncovered how TVA’s over-reliance on fossil fuel sources will end in elevated value and decreased reliability. As mentioned in Hubbard’s testimony, buyer payments skyrocketed in 2022 when fuel costs spiked, as TVA passes 100% of gasoline prices by means of to its prospects. TVA needed to lower off folks’s energy all throughout the Valley throughout Winter Storm Elliott in December of 2022 as a result of fuel energy crops failed and fuel gasoline was unavailable. Hubbard additionally outlines how TVA’s deliberate fuel crops might turn into stranded belongings: crops that prospects are on the hook to pay for with out getting any advantages (i.e. energy) from these crops. Deliberate fuel crops throughout the nation are being cancelled, and the EPA is predicted to launch a regulation on greenhouse fuel emissions from fuel crops this yr. TVA’s deliberate fuel buildout isn’t immune to those headwinds.
Within the intervening years because the 2019 IRP, an rising variety of signposts are pointing away from new gas-fired era and towards renewables and storage. – Peter Hubbard, Georgia Clear Vitality Options
Peter additionally noticed that TVA is taking a variety of liberties from their 2019 IRP, which referred to as for constructing 2 GW of recent gas-fired mixed cycle capability and 1.5 GW of recent combustion turbine capability. That’s 3.5 GW whole. However even earlier than they began this present 2024 IRP course of, TVA had already reached a “closing” determination to construct 3.5 GW of gas-fired items at Johnsonville, Paradise, Colbert, and Cumberland AND proposed a 1.5 GW fuel mixed cycle at Kingston, 0.5 GW fuel combustion turbine on the New Caledonia web site in addition to 0.9 GW in Cheatham County. Which means TVA was already pursuing a complete of 6.3 whole proposed GW, theoretically whereas nonetheless below the steerage of the 2019 plan.
It’s Additionally About Well being – Taylor Allred
Subsequent up, Taylor Allred from Greenlink Analytics offered testimony on environmental justice and power burdens. Vitality burden is the portion of a family’s revenue that goes towards power prices. Tennesseans face excessive ranges of power burden throughout the board; Memphis, particularly, has among the many highest power burdens within the nation.
Taylor introduced findings from Greenlink’s mapping instruments, which confirmed a correlation between power burdens and race, with increased power burdens extra doubtless in neighborhoods with predominantly Black or Latinx residents. He additionally discovered a robust correlation between power burden and bronchial asthma charges.
In different phrases, this isn’t nearly affordability, it’s about well being.
Taylor acknowledged that TVA’s lately introduced $1.5 billion funding in energy-efficiency funding by means of 2028 might make an enormous distinction for public well being and power burden, and likewise create jobs and financial improvement. Utilizing Greenlink’s Clear Vitality Jobs Calculator, Taylor was in a position to estimate that the $1.5 billion funding in power effectivity might create 10,000 extra native jobs and a web enhance in job-based revenue of $660 million. (SACE has beforehand referred to as on TVA to develop power effectivity applications as part of its financial improvement work.) However he additionally identified that Greenlink’s prior evaluation confirmed that $1-1.5 billion could be essential to get power burdens beneath 6% in Memphis alone.
Clear Vitality will Convey Financial Advantages for the Tennessee Valley – Taylor McNair
Our closing skilled, Taylor McNair from GridLab shared a report and coverage transient launched in 2023 by GridLab and Synapse Vitality Economics that presents a path for TVA to attain 100% clear electrical energy by 2035. GridLab and Synapse used the identical modeling software as TVA, EnCompass, to develop this pathway. Taylor McNair introduced the outcomes of that research in his testimony.
Based mostly on that evaluation, the 100% Clear Vitality transition for TVA would ship over $255 Billion in economy-wide web financial savings for Valley prospects and assist over 15,000 jobs every year.
A pathway to 100% clear electrical energy by 2035 with a deal with distributed power sources like power effectivity and rooftop photo voltaic would additionally scale back power burdens and enhance well being throughout the Valley.
What’s Subsequent
You may watch a recording of the listening to and assessment the testimony and paperwork developed by skilled witnesses. With this info, ship a remark to the TVA Board of Administrators earlier than its subsequent assembly on February 14 in Johnson Metropolis, Tennessee to inform the Board what you need to see from TVA on its IRP course of and IRP itself. We count on TVA to launch its draft IRP in March. Given the flawed process for partaking knowledgeable feedback and lack of impartial assessment, we’re extremely skeptical that the TVA draft IRP will serve our area effectively. As the method unfolds, SACE will proceed to assist the general public perceive what’s within the draft and what it means for our charges, our local weather, our air and water, and our communities.
The Individuals’s Listening to was organized by: Appalachian Voices, Vitality Alabama, Southern Alliance for Clear Vitality, Dawn Nashville, Heart for Organic Range, Local weather Actuality Undertaking: Memphis and Nashville chapters, and Vote Photo voltaic.
