Chatt TFP: TVA plans "supercharged" growth, maybe divergence from Trump climate policy
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TVA plans for ‘supercharged’ growth, potential divergence from Trump policy
10 hours, 48 minutes ago by Daniel Dassow
Staff Photo by Seth Carpenter/ Hunter Reed, project manager for the Tennessee Valley Authority's integrated resource plan, speaks during a meeting with the Regional Energy Resource Council on the TVA's energy plan on Feb. 18, 2026. The council serves as a panel of advisers to the TVA.
President Donald Trump may have enabled the nation's largest public utility to keep its aging coal-fired power plants open, but the Tennessee Valley Authority is planning for a future in which the president's climate deregulation may be reversed.
In a new, simplified version of its long-term plan to meet growing demand for electricity through 2050, TVA is preparing for a scenario in which federal efforts like a carbon tax seek to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The utility has also revised its modeling to increase annual growth in both instant power demand and energy served across time, adding a scenario of "supercharged" growth.
The simpler draft of the so-called integrated resource plan is scheduled to go before the TVA board of directors in May for final approval after years of delays. The last time TVA approved one of the plans was 2019, when it expected its electricity demand growth to stay low for the next two decades.
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Population growth in TVA's seven-state region and large data centers have changed the math for the federal agency. TVA officials expect power demands to grow by 2% annually for the next five years, faster than even the highest-growth scenario showed in 2019.
Since releasing a draft of the new plan in 2024, TVA has adjusted its models to show increases of 1,000 to 2,000 megawatts for each scenario.
Utility officials unveiled the new plan at a meeting of the Regional Energy Resource Council in Chattanooga last week. The council, composed of external advisers to TVA, had not met since 2024.
"The entire curve has been lifted up as we incorporate the additional demand that we are seeing on the system, particularly from industrial loads, with a big focus on data center loads," Hunter Reed, TVA project manager for the integrated resource plan, said at the meeting.
TVA is based in Knoxville and maintains an operations hub in Chattanooga, where it controls a system that generates and transmits power for more than 10 million people.
The federal utility was scheduled to release a new plan in 2024 but delayed the process because of environmental rules implemented under former President Joe Biden. TVA released a draft of the plan in 2024, and staff prepared a final version in 2025, but the board lost its quorum when Trump fired several of its members last year.
A new board made mostly of Trump nominees is tasked with approving the 2026 version of the plan. The plan does not set electric rates, identify sites for new plants or plan for how power is distributed through local utilities.
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TVA plans for ‘supercharged’ growth, potential divergence from Trump policy
SIMPLER PLAN
The plan pairs scenarios outside TVA's control with strategies the utility could enact in response. The initial draft included six scenarios and five strategies, and the new draft includes three of each.
The resource plan is about finding the optimal mix of power sources to meet various scenarios through 2050, Reed said. TVA rewrote parts of the draft after Trump's tax and spending bill phased out tax credits for solar and wind projects. The president has also signed executive orders and reversed regulations to allow coal plants to operate longer.
Costs for most energy sources, including gas and solar, have risen since the first draft, Reed said. TVA is required by the Energy Policy Act of 1992 to do least-cost planning, taking energy efficiency and renewable energy into account in its plans.
The three scenarios in the new draft are a base reference, a high electricity growth scenario and a carbon legislation scenario. TVA increased the high-growth models to show 2.4% annual growth in peak demand and 2.5% annual growth in energy served.
"Basically, you can think of supercharged growth as being double today's current load by 2050," Reed said.
The three strategies in response are TVA's base planning, an innovation strategy with a focus on nuclear and battery storage and a distributed strategy with a focus on renewable energy and energy efficiency.
None of the strategies emphasizes coal power or traditional gas turbines, which burn fossil fuels that emit air pollution. The long-term plan stands in contrast to the board's decision earlier this month to keep two coal plants running indefinitely and the utility's short-term strategy to build nearly 7,000 megawatts of natural gas plants.
During a listening session to the council, several speakers noted that the initial draft showed more growth in renewable energy than any other source. The new TVA board removed renewable energy from TVA's strategic priorities.
"Renewables were the largest source of new generation TVA planned to add between now and 2050," said Pam Jones, a member of the Clean Up TVA environmental coalition. "Since then, the economic case of solar has only gotten stronger, as prices for panels and batteries keep falling."
The last draft included up to 20,000 new megawatts of solar capacity and up to 6,000 megawatts of new battery capacity by 2035. TVA officials did not share revised estimates for specific resource types with the council.
GETTING APPROVAL
While the initial draft of the plan was the result of a dozen public meetings and more than 2,200 official public comments, the revised draft won't be open to as much public input.
TVA plans to host a public hearing on the new draft and receive feedback from its invite-only councils and working group for the plan.
"It just won't be the same roadshow of going around to the valley like we have done in the past," said Hunter Hydas, TVA director of system planning, "but still trying to get that public engagement through other means."
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TVA should open more opportunities for public comment, said Leah McCord, a state coordinator with environmental nonprofit Appalachian Voices.
"We all deserve a chance to review and respond to any changes made," McCord told the council. "I would encourage you to question why TVA is now stuck clinging to antiquated coal technology, which locks us into higher costs and unnecessary pollution."
Information shared with the council can be viewed on TVA's webpage for the 2026 integrated resource plan.
Contact business reporter Daniel Dassow at dda...@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318.
Daniel Dassow is a business reporter for the Chattanooga Times Free Press. He earned degrees in English and religious studies from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 2023, where he served as editor-in-chief of The Daily Beacon. He previously worked as a tech and energy reporter for the Knoxville News Sentinel. He is the youngest of six siblings. Contact him at 423-757-6318 or dda...@timesfreepress.com.