Tag: Southern Alliance for Clean Energy

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Environmental Groups Want More Time On MLGW Power Supply Decision

(Credit: TVA)

Environmental groups are asking Memphis Light, Gas & Water (MLGW) for more time on its power supply decision to allow for further review and public comment. 

MLGW staff recommended last week that the utility stay with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) as its power provider. The recommendation came after local review on the decision, several studies on energy reliability and potential savings, and much noise made by environmental groups who say TVA is not doing enough on sustainable energy and that its contracts are too long. 

When MLGW announced the recommendation last week, it came with a vague, 30-day period for public comment on the move. Three groups — the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), Protect Our Aquifer (POA), and Memphis Community Against Pollution (MCAP) — asked the MLGW board commissioners for an additional month. 

The request would give another month for public comment, and another month after that for MLGW’s commissioners to review those comments. If the request is granted, a final vote on the power-supply decision would come no sooner than November 30th. 

”The [MLGW board of commissioners] must have adequate time to meaningfully consider public comment,” reads the letter issued Tuesday. “Otherwise, the board risks the appearance of merely rubber-stamping the staff recommendation. It is particularly important that the Board’s decision-making process be open and transparent because of the existing relationships between TVA and MLGW.”

MLGW has been a TVA customer for more than 80 years. MLGW is also TVA’s largest customer. 

Last week’s announcement of the MLGW staff recommendation was criticized by the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) saying “we’re confident it’s not in the best interest of MLGW customers.” The group said the new 20-year contract, which has already been signed by numerous other TVA clients, would “lock the utility and its ratepayers into a forever contract.” The current contract with TVA is up every five years. 

“We disagree with the recommendation MLGW staff presented to the MLGW Board of Commissioners and look forward to finally being able to see the responses to the MLGW power-supply proposal,” said Dr. Steven Smith, SACE executive director. “We are concerned that today’s presentation was highly skewed and lacked an appropriate balance of risk and benefits. We look forward to reviewing the underlying data that these assumptions were built on.”

Other providers, SACE said, could offer offer longer-term economic and environmental benefits. These benefits could also greatly increase now, SACE said, after the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. SACE said the new law — with its billions in spending for environmental projects — could “greatly amplify alternative portfolios’ estimated savings and energy resiliency benefits” that could “be worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Memphis if MLGW is not restricted by TVA’s contract requirements.”

As for environmental issues, TVA said the day before MLGW’s announcement last week that it plans to be 80 percent carbon free by 2035 and completely carbon free by 2050. TVA’s timeline does not match that of President Joe Biden, who wants a carbon free power grid by 2035. TVA says it must move slower to ensure reliability. 

TVA has said that more than half of its energy sources are carbon free and not “not affected by fuel price volatility.” The TVA board voted last week to keep its base electric rate steady through its next fiscal year. But many Memphians were shocked this summer as high natural gas prices from TVA made for much higher MLGW bills. 

MLGW staffers said if the utility stayed with TVA, customers would save about $32 a year on their electric bills. Overall, MLGW said the new contract with TVA “demonstrates the greatest value and least risk.” They said the move would save MLGW $125 million over the next five years and $944 million over the next 25 years. 

The three groups asking for more time for board members to review the possible TVA move asked for more transparency in the vote as well. They said the long relationship between TVA and MLGW is yet another reason for board members to have a close look at all the offers not he table. 

“TVA is MLGW’s current power provider, and the utilities’ decades-long relationship gives TVA unique access to MLGW and its customers,” reads the letter. “Indeed, recent news reports reveal that TVA spent the past several years lobbying suburban governments served by MLGW to support the federal utility’s bid. 

“TVA is also MLGW’s largest water customer, giving the federal utility another advantage in this decision-making process and adding another reason why it is important that the board carefully evaluate independent, third-party perspectives shared during the public comment period.”

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Opinion The Last Word

Environmentalists Applaud Passage of Inflation Reduction Act

The bill’s approval surprised many. (Photo: Quick PS | Unsplash)

Last week Congress approved the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022. The bill does a lot of things, but environmentalists applauded its $350 billion package to address climate change and promote clean energy investments. Some said the bill has the potential to lower greenhouse gas emissions across the nation by 40 percent by 2030. Here’s what some of those environmental advocates had to say about it.

“Change is coming. This bill is a historic commitment by the United States to regain a leadership position not only in addressing climate disruption but also in leading the clean energy technology revolution that is being unleashed.

While no single entity can take credit for the roller-coaster ride that led to the Senate [and the House later] passing this significant legislation, much credit must be given to the voters in Georgia. By electing not one, but two climate-focused Senate leaders in a runoff election in early 2021, these two Southern senators were absolutely necessary for creating this moment in history and shepherding the bill through the political tightrope in the Senate.”

— Stephen Smith (writing before the House passed the bill)
Executive Director, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy

“In almost every Climate Reality training, I include a quote from the great American poet Wallace Stevens, who wrote: ‘After the final no there comes a yes / and on that yes the future world depends.’

Today, in Congress, there came a historic yes, with the House voting to follow the Senate and pass the Inflation Reduction Act, the biggest climate bill the U.S. has ever seen. It is no great exaggeration to say that on this ‘yes’ our future world depends.

To help shape the climate measures that are included in this bill, our Climate Reality leaders and chapters held more than 150 meetings with legislators. Our friends and supporters contacted their representatives and policy-makers over 180,000 times. All with one simple message: Go big. Go bold. Act now. Yes, yes, yes.

There is much to celebrate. The IRA will supercharge the just transition to clean energy that is already underway across the country, transforming our economy while creating an estimated 1.5 million jobs and cutting costs for working families. Critically, the bill invests $60 billion in frontline communities hit hardest by fossil fuel pollution and the climate crisis, bringing clean air, good jobs, and better opportunities to those who have been subject to generations of environmental injustice.

The impact of this bill will ripple across continents. By putting the U.S. on the path to cutting global warming pollution 40 percent by 2030, the IRA helps keep the Paris Agreement alive and demonstrates to the world that we are committed to climate action for the long-term.

But for all the progress we will achieve through the IRA, there are provisions that require urgent attention and action. Fossil fuel interests forced painful concessions in negotiations, requiring the government to offer new areas for drilling in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, as well as more oil and gas leasing on our public lands. Lawmakers are poised to take additional steps that would fast-track pipelines that communities — and Climate Reality leaders — have fought for years to block.”

— Al Gore
Founder and Chairman, The Climate Reality Project

“The historic passage of the Inflation Reduction Act makes renewable energy — which was already affordable and, in many cases, cheaper than gas — even more cost-effective. Even before today’s momentous vote, an independent study found that the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) would save billions by replacing its aging, dirty coal plants with clean energy as opposed to gas.

Families across the Valley are seeing higher power bills this summer due to TVA’s over-reliance on fossil fuels. It should be a no-brainer for TVA to take advantage of this groundbreaking legislation by scrapping plans to recklessly spend billions on new gas plants and invest in clean energy sources instead.”

— Amanda Garcia
Tennessee Office Director, Southern Environmental Law Center

“The Inflation Reduction Act is by far the most consequential legislation for climate action that has ever passed. I think it will take some time to be able to process the scale and positive effects this will have on our collective future.

But the fight is not over, we’ll need to keep up momentum across the country and here in the Southeast. Paired with more federal, state, and local actions, we will be more equipped to face the most existential threat of our time: climate change.”

— Maggie Shober
Research Director, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy

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News The Fly-By

New Coalition Urges Quicker Moves on Clean Energy

(Credit: TVA)

A new coalition launched last week urging the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) toward a fossil-fuel-free future by 2030, but the provider aims to get there by 2050 to ensure low-cost and reliable energy.

Dozens of organizations formed the Clean Up TVA Coalition (CUTC) last week. It includes environmental, social justice, and political groups like the Memphis NAACP, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE), the Sierra Club, Tennessee Interfaith Power & Light, the Center for Biological Diversity, and more

They formed CUTC in response to TVA’s move to replace coal-fired power plants in Kingston (East Tennessee) and Cumberland City (Middle Tennessee) with a new methane gas plant and 149 miles of new gas pipeline. Instead of investing in gas, the group wants TVA to invest in clean energy solutions to replace the coal plants.

“TVA is too reliant on fossil fuel energy and plans to continue to generate millions of tons of carbon,” said Pearl Walker, co-chair of the Memphis NAACP Environmental Justice Committee. “Households in the TVA footprint — especially Black, Brown, and low-wealth communities — will continue to be disproportionately burdened by high utility bills and dirty energy.”

In May 2021, TVA board members endorsed a plan to move toward net-zero emissions by 2050. The power agency has cut its carbon emissions by 63 percent since 2005. To get there, it added 1,600 megawatts of new nuclear capacity (the most of any utility in the nation, TVA said), added 1,600 megawatts of wind and solar capacity, planned to retire 8,600 megawatts of coal capacity by 2023, and invested more than $400 million to promote energy efficiency.

“The steps we’ve already taken operationally and financially have created a strong foundation for supplying cleaner energy without impacting reliability or low cost,” said Jeff Lyash, TVA president and CEO. “TVA is an industry leader in carbon reduction, but we aren’t satisfied. We are focused on increasing carbon reduction while maintaining our commitment to the low-cost, reliable energy our customers expect and deserve.”

TVA is on the path to cut carbon by 80 percent by 2035 without impacting TVA’s reliability or costs, Lyash said. It expects to retire all of its coal plants that year, using natural gas facilities as a “bridging strategy to effectively allow the addition of more renewable energy without impacting system reliability.”

But to get to net-zero carbon emissions will take new developments like energy storage systems, carbon capture, and advanced nuclear solutions.

President Joe Biden wants carbon-free electricity by 2035, according to an executive order he issued in December. Federal operations and federal procurements will be carbon-free by 2050, under Biden’s order.

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Cover Feature News

Sun Block: Memphis’ Hard Road to More Solar Power

Vaclav Volrab | Dreamstime.com

Blue Oval City, the planned automotive assembly plant operated by Ford Motor Company and SK Innovation, supercharged local imaginations. Jobs, business, and money — sure — but this project could allow West Tennessee to be a rugged, “built-Ford-tough” cowboy from the past and Captain Planet for the future at the same time.

The project proves Ford Motor Co. is dead serious about that marriage of ideas. The 1,500-acre campus will cost $5.6 billion to build, the biggest manufacturing investment in the company’s history. The planned megacampus in Haywood County is the first Ford will build “in more than a generation.”

This bold pivot to electric vehicles was a hard-to-miss shift in the wind. It’s a massive bet that customers still want the mythical, American self-reliance projected by its iconic F-150 truck — but they also want it without the gas-guzzling, planet-choking, tailpipe fog of most cars made in the last 100 years.

The moment was bold enough that Ford CEO Bill Ford told reporters, “We’re on the cusp of a revolution,” one that would help “build a better future for America.” It doesn’t stop at trucks.

“The all-new megacampus just outside of Memphis, called Blue Oval City, aspires to have 100 percent renewable energy, zero waste to landfill, and reusing every drop of water, to ensure our planet is in it for the long haul,” Ford Motor Co. tweeted at the time.

But if nothing changes, and without help from other programs, the all-electric F-150 Lightnings that roll off the line here first will be ready for antique Tennessee license plates by the time that plant is powered entirely by renewable energy. Blue Oval City sits squarely in the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) service area, and that power provider says it won’t be carbon-neutral until 2050, about 25 years after the Ford plant is expected to open.   

If TVA’s power mix remains the same, that cutting-edge factory — and those Earth-saving trucks — will be charged with a mix heavy with nuclear power, coal, and natural gas. Only 14 percent of TVA’s power-generation portfolio is renewable, including hydroelectric (11 percent), wind and solar (3 percent), and some energy-efficiency programs (1 percent). But TVA says their Green Invest turnkey solar program “can help businesses like Ford achieve their sustainability goals using 100 percent renewable energy.” TVA says it leads its Southeastern peers with a generation portfolio that is already 63 percent carbon-free.

Throughout the Tennessee River Valley, major corporations, big Tennessee companies, cities, counties, and more have publicly stated environmental goals. They all want to reduce waste and reduce their carbon footprints, meaning they want less reliance on fossil fuels and more on renewables, like wind and solar.

TVA knows this, according to internal documents, and considers it a threat to its bottom line, one it means to fix. If this sounds off, U.S. House members thought so, too, enough to launch an investigation into TVA’s business practices on renewables.

Joined at the Hip on Climate Change
Memphis and Shelby County’s climate goals around renewable energy will depend much on TVA, and some say that could be problematic.

Greenhouse gas emissions from energy accounted for nearly half (46 percent) of all of the Memphis area’s total emissions, according to the latest environmental inventory taken back in 2016 for the Memphis Area Climate Action Plan adopted in 2019. Energy emissions include those in buildings: houses, apartments, stores, salons, banks, museums, restaurants, warehouses, factories, and more. The rest were emissions from two other major categories: transportation (52 percent) and waste (like landfills and wastewater treatment) at 12 percent.

The climate plan — approved by the Memphis City Council, the Shelby County Commission, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, and Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris — commits these governments to developing renewable energy generation at key facilities (like solar panels on government buildings) and/or buying renewables through energy certificates, green tariff products, and participating in community shared solar projects.

But those are details. The plan and, therefore, everyone who approved it, agreed on one thing: “grid decarbonization — or increasing the carbon-free energy sources in our electric supply — has the greatest impact on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions in our community.” They all agreed, too, that there was little they could do about it.

“As noted in the discussion of community-wide education targets, a large portion of these 2020 reductions are expected as a result of actions outside local control,” reads the plan, “for example, TVA’s planned increase in carbon-free energy sources in their energy portfolio.”

To see just how closely the city’s goals are dependent on TVA, consider their timelines to carbon-free energy. The Memphis Area Climate Action Plan calls for the electric grid to be 80 percent carbon-free by 2035. So do TVA’s plans. (Even though President Joe Biden’s climate goals want totally carbon-free energy by 2035.) Memphis-area leaders want a completely carbon-free electric grid by 2050. So does TVA.

A mix of solar and wind projects helped the TVA to reduce carbon emissions by 63 percent from 2005 to 2020. But solar leads the way in the Southeast, and TVA says it’ll be mainly solar projects that will aid it in its future reductions.

But environmental watchdog groups claim TVA has thrown up roadblocks to solar projects, especially for homeowners and business owners, to protect its finances. The reasons are complicated, but one thing is clear to Maggie Shober, research director with the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE).

“TVA is behind,” Shober said on solar energy. “TVA is behind the Southeast, and the Southeast is behind the rest of the country.”

However, TVA says it is now building the “energy system of the future,” which aspires to net-zero emissions by 2050 and to add 10,000 megawatts of solar.

Where Do We Stand?
When it comes to solar, Tennessee (with about 390 megawatts of solar capacity) ranks third to last in the Southeast, ahead of only Mississippi (362 megawatts) and Alabama (319 megawatts). Florida leads the region with 7,765 megawatts of solar capacity, followed by North Carolina (7,460 megawatts) and Georgia (3,444 megawatts). All of this is according to late-2021 figures from the Solar Energy Industries Association.

Among power providers in the Southeast with more than 500,000 customers, TVA ranks 10th of 13 on solar watts per customer, according to SACE’s annual “Solar in the Southeast” report. The Southeast average of watts per customer is 423 watts. TVA provides 105 solar watts per customer, according to the report. The highest is North Carolina’s Duke Energy with 1,952 solar watts per customer. The lowest is Tampa, Florida’s Seminole Electric Co-Op, providing only 45 solar watts per customer.   

Among TVA’s biggest Tennessee customers, Memphis Light, Gas and Water (MLGW) ranks second for solar watts per customer. MLGW offers 66 solar watts per customer, only slightly behind Nashville Electric Service, offering 67 solar watts per customer. These figures fall below the Southeast average of 423 solar watts per customer and the TVA average of 90 watts per customer hour.

So, Tennessee ranks near the bottom on solar. TVA ranks near the bottom on solar. And MLGW ranks below TVA’s average for access to solar power.

“TVA will be quadrupling solar capacity by 2024, yet continues to trail the other large utility systems in the Southeast,” reads the SACE report. “By 2024, SACE projects TVA to reach the 2020 region average.”

Winds Don’t Blow
In 2010, Houston-based Clean Line Energy Partners answered a call from the U.S. Department of Energy for a new project to modernize the country’s electric transmission structure, increase domestic energy sources, support new jobs, and do it all without taxpayer money. Clean Line proposed a $2.5 billion, 700-mile-long transmission line from Oklahoma to end at a connector near Millington. 

If the deal was done, 3,500 megawatts of clean wind power from Oklahoma and Texas would have pumped through Memphis and into the TVA service area and beyond starting in 2020. But it wasn’t. So, it’s not. And TVA was the deal-breaker.

The connector project alone was valued at $259 million. It had broad support here from government, civic, and business groups. It was even supported by the Memphis and Shelby County Economic Development Growth Engine (EDGE) with $23.3 million in tax breaks, which the group said would yield $37.1 million in benefits back to the community.

Then-Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Maryville) opposed the project, claiming the power was unreliable and that, over decades, it would increase TVA rates. Then-Shelby County Commissioner Terry Roland (R-Millington) fired back at Alexander, a fellow Republican, claiming the project would be a financial boon for the area and that Alexander “put his own agenda ahead of what’s best for West Tennessee.”

For TVA, though, the clean-energy deal got down to economics. After nearly seven years of study — with the company spending money to move the project forward — TVA said it didn’t really need any extra power, no matter the source.

Bill Johnson, TVA president at the time, told the Chattanooga Times Free Press in 2017, “We’re looking at a power demand in the future that is flat, or declining slightly, so we don’t anticipate needing major additions to power generation for a decade or more.”

While TVA said the move did not make financial sense at the time, it welcomed Clean Line to come back with a new proposal. They did not. The company withdrew its proposal at the end of 2017 and sold the land for the project to NextEra Energy, the world’s largest utility company, to divert more wind power to the Southwest.

Environmentalists blasted TVA’s “thanks, but no thanks” on the wind-energy project. Others, like Alexander, celebrated it as a solid example of financial stewardship. Either way, it remains TVA’s highest-profile example of saying “thanks, but no thanks” to renewables, especially ones it does not own.  

A Rate-Making Rubik’s Cube
While the Clean Line dismissal was a high-dollar, high-profile deal conducted largely in public, some say TVA is still blocking renewables, especially solar, in a smaller, more complicated way. But it’s a way that directly affects and involves its customers.

In 2018, TVA approved a “grid access fee.” With it, TVA charges MLGW the fee to use its electricity grid and 7,000 miles of transmission lines. If demand for TVA’s power will stay the same or go down in the future, as former TVA CEO Johnson said in 2017, then that means fewer dollars for TVA as expenses rise. Fixed fees, like the grid access charge, ensure a steadier stream of dollars, instead of the up-and-down whims of market demand. 

The Sierra Club explained grid access fees this way: “TVA’s board of directors today approved a mandatory fixed fee that will force customers to pay more on their electric bill before they even flip a switch.”

MLGW spokeswoman Stacey Greenberg said the utility, TVA’s largest customer, paid $59.1 million in grid access fees in the 2021 fiscal year. When asked if those fees were passed on to MLGW customers, Greenberg said, “As stated in the response to the first question, the change was a revenue neutral change at the system level and MLGW did not change the fixed or variable portions of any retail rates.” After press time, Greenberg clarified that the fees are passed on to MLGW customers. She said the average residential customer pays about $6.24 each year for the grid access fee.

So, what does this have to do with solar? These fees will remain the same no matter how much solar you sell back to the grid. Solar advocates say these fees undercut savings on electric bills and, therefore, cut the amount of clean, renewable solar power that businesses and homeowners will install on their buildings.

But in 2018, TVA said solar projects for specific sites were not fair and that its current energy prices “over-incentivize consumer installation of [distributed energy sources like solar] leading to uneconomic results for the people of the Valley as a whole.”

“Over the next decade, forecasted load is expected to be flat or declining, resulting in little need for new energy sources,” according to a 2018 TVA report. “At the same time, consumer interest in renewable energy continues to rise. The imbalance created by uneconomic [on-site solar projects] investment means that costs are shifted to consumers throughout the Valley who cannot afford [on-site solar projects] or otherwise choose not to invest in [on-site solar projects].”

But it came to light that dissing these solar projects was about more than economic justice for TVA. A Freedom of Information Act request by SACE found an internal TVA PowerPoint presentation. It claimed that distributed energy resources (like solar panels on homes or businesses) present “a threat to our business model.”   

“Essentially all ‘normal’ large commercial customers would benefit economically from some amount of on-site solar installations,” reads the PowerPoint published by SACE.

The presentation then listed several major corporations with renewable energy goals, companies like McDonald’s, Walmart, Amazon, Cargill, FedEx, Google, Unilever, Hilton, and more. TVA identified its customers with renewable goals. If they met their goals on renewables, the utility projected losses of up to $500 million. If they passed the grid access fees, “the number of economic [solar] installations decrease by [about] 40 percent.”

It wasn’t until January 2022 that all of it caught the attention of members of the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Four ranking Democrats on the committee issued a letter to TVA president and CEO Jeff Lyash that month. They sought an explanation of TVA’s rate changes and whether they “were intended to interfere with the deployment of distributed energy resources.” The group also wanted “an explanation for TVA’s comparative underinvestment in solar and wind generation.”

“TVA has also interfered with the adoption of renewable energy by its commercial and residential customers,” reads the letter. “TVA has also permitted local power companies to impose new fees on distributed solar generation in order to lessen the potential decrease in TVA load that may occur through the adoption of [behind the meter] generation.”

In a February 22nd letter to the House committee, TVA said, “The 2018 rate change that included the grid access charge (GAC) better reflects the wholesale cost of energy and recognizes the value of the grid’s reliability and associated costs. The primary objectives of the 2018 rate change were to continue to improve the alignment of wholesale rates with their underlying costs to serve and to facilitate measured, managed changes in LPCs’ [local power company’s] retail rate structures.”

TVA says it will achieve its clean-energy goals, especially the 10,000 megawatts of added solar, in a way that will not “put the financial burden on other consumers while maintaining our 100 percent reliable delivery of electricity to Memphis and Shelby County.”

“Reliable electricity is extremely important, not only for homes and businesses in our region but also for attracting jobs and industry,” TVA spokesman Scott Brooks said in a statement last week. “While other regions like Texas had blackouts and failing power grids in the last two February storms, TVA’s delivery of power to Memphis remained intact. And we’re doing all this while holding wholesale power rates steady for a third year in a row, with a commitment in our strategic plan to maintain rates for the next decade.”

Power and Water
Another way TVA could block renewables, according to an ongoing lawsuit, is through the length of TVA’s new contracts. These 20-year contracts replace previous seven-year contracts, enough for plaintiffs in the suit to call them “never-ending.” The plaintiffs — Protect Our Aquifer (POA), Alabama Center for Sustainable Energy, and Appalachian Voices — say these long-term contracts lock customers in and lock out other providers who may be less reliant on fossil fuels than TVA.

“There are growing calls in the Tennessee Valley for cheaper, cleaner, and renewable power options — but the Tennessee Valley Authority is able to ignore these demands through the use of its long-term agreement program,” said Southern Environmental Law Center Tennessee Office director Amanda Garcia. “These contracts automatically renew each year and require 20-years notice to terminate, making it practically impossible for local power companies to leave TVA. By locking its customers into these never-ending contracts, TVA is able to bankroll new fossil fuel plants and slow-walk its transition to clean energy solutions — like solar and wind power, energy efficiency, and battery storage technology — that are effective, affordable, and available right now.”

As for the public’s interest, POA executive director Sarah Houston said TVA’s new natural-gas-power Allen Combined Cycle Plant is a threat to the sustainability of the Memphis area’s drinking water. That plant used 653 million gallons of water in 2020, according to a report in The Commercial Appeal, to cool its turbines.

That water comes from the Memphis Sand Aquifer, albeit delivered from the Davis and Allen well fields a few miles from the gas plant. While the pumping is not directly next to the toxic coal ash pits, Scott Banbury, conservation program coordinator and lobbyist with the Tennessee Sierra Club, said drawing water there could still bring toxic elements into the aquifer. In general, though, Houston said, “with renewables, you have a lot less local water use and water impact compared to frack-gas plants and coal plants.”

In August 2021, United States District Judge Thomas Parker dismissed TVA’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

“The LTP was developed in collaboration with local power companies, and 146 of them have voluntarily signed the contract implementing it,” TVA said in a statement. “TVA disagrees with the allegations and will appropriately reply through the court.”

Big Decision
All of this comes in the backdrop of MLGW’s historic decision on whether or not to break with TVA and find another power provider. In its search, MLGW makes it clear it wants more solar power, too.

MLGW’s request for proposals says it’s looking for someone to install 1,000 megawatts of solar power, divided equally between two facilities in North Memphis and South Memphis. 

As MLGW’s search goes on, the path to more renewable energy for Memphians is still unclear, but with a commitment to more solar power, the sun may still shine on a more renewable, less fossil-fuel-dependent future. 

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News News Blog

Groups Criticize TVA for Lack of Transparency, Engagement

Credit: Tennessee Valley Energy Democracy Movement

Two groups urged the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) for more transparency and more public input this week, reminding that the power giant is a public agency. 

In a letter, the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) objected to TVA’s “effort to evade meaningful public engagement” around its decisions on where to store coal ash from the former Allen Fossil Plant. Protestors locked arms in Knoxville this week, demanding TVA “immediately resume public listening sessions” at board meetings, which were suspended on Covid-19 concerns.

Toxic coal ash ponds at the former Allen Fossil Plant near Presidents Island threaten the Memphis Sand Aquifer, the area’s source of its famously pure drinking water. TVA has agreed to remove the ash from the site. 

But SELC attorneys say the process of finding a location to dump the ash has not been transparent and the utility has not engaged well with neighbors who may be affected by the selection. The group watches these decisions closely and said it was surprised in late July to find that a dump site — the South Shelby Landfill — had been selected and that construction of a new landfill for the project had been completed already “without ever having disclosed its selection of this specific landfill.” 

The SELC is now asking TVA for an additional review of the project. It says TVA did not adequately seek out other sites for the ash. TVA also ”violated federal regulations by depriving communities in South Memphis the opportunity to provide input on the disposal plan.” That plan will run trucks from the Allen site across several South Memphis neighborhood to the landfill (close to the corner of Holmes and Malone).

“TVA’s decision will impose nearly a decade of additional traffic, noise, air pollution, and public safety impacts on predominantly Black, low-wealth communities in South Memphis that already bear more than their fair share of environmental burdens — including the cumulative burdens associated with sixty years of TVA’s burning of coal at the Allen Coal Plant and TVA’s ongoing operation of the Allen Combined Cycle Plant,” reads the SELC letter.  

Earlier this week, protestors gathered in Knoxville with a demonstration called “Locked Out, Locked Arms,” seeking access to TVA board meeting. 

The meetings have been mostly virtual through much of the pandemic, but some board members are gathering in person once again. However, the board has not resumed public listening sessions at meetings.    

“Unlike legislative bodies and government agencies across the country that have adapted and adopted virtual participation and public comment in response to Covid-19, TVA’s board has not held any public listening sessions since it shifted to virtual board meetings in May 2020,” reads a statement from the Tennessee Valley Energy Democracy Movement, a collaboration of environmental groups throughout TVA’s service area. 

The protestors also displayed a paper chain made with a selection of 4,000 comments submitted by members of the public on subjects ranging from climate change to transparency. 

“I am requesting public listening sessions,” wrote Trish Marshall of Nashville. “No ‘backroom’ decisions made in secret. TVA is a public entity!  Enough of the ‘covertness’ more transparency!”

A TVA official did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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News News Blog

Report: Electric Cars Could Keep Billions in Tennessee Economy

(Credit: Southern Alliance for Clean Energy)

When Tennesseans fuel up, much of their money flows out of state. But that hole could be patched with electric cars, according to a new study. 

In 2019, Tennesseans spent more than $11.3 billion on fuel — gasoline and diesel — according to data from the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE). More than $8.2 billion of that money left the state for other states and countries with oil reserves or petroleum processing plants. As cars become more fuel efficient and stop hitting the pump as often, Tennessee could see even less money, the report says. 

(Credit: Southern Alliance for Clean Energy)

But what if all those cars and trucks (and all the fuel dollars spent on them) were electric? SACE researchers crunched the numbers and found state drivers would save more than half on fueling their rides, and two-thirds of that money would stay here. In an all-electric Tennessee, drivers would have spent more than $5.7 billion to charge their cars and more than $3.9 billion of that money would remain in Tennessee.

(Credit: Southern Alliance for Clean Energy)

Across the Southeast, consumers spend $94 billion on gas and diesel annually, according to the report. The figure would be cut nearly in half to $52 billion if spent on electricity. Of that, about $35 billion would be kept in the region, a $5 billion increase over fuel spending. Add it up, and SACE said electrifying Southeast transportation could be a $47 billion boon to the region each year. 

(Credit: Southern Alliance for Clean Energy)
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News Blog News Feature

Group: TVA Zero-Carbon Plan “Out of Step” With White House

TVA: Facebook

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) plans to reduce its carbon emissions to zero by 2050, but the move was criticized for being out of step with White House goals. 

The TVA announced its carbon-emissions plan Thursday in a quarterly meeting of the power provider’s board of directors. TVA said it has already reduced carbon emission by 63 percent since 2005 and hopes to further reduce that figure to 70 percent by 2030. This path will cut TVA’s carbon reduction by 80 percent by 2035. That is where one group said the agency’s intentions ”fall far short.” 

President Joe Biden issued an executive order in January for a “clean-energy revolution that achieves a carbon-pollution-free power sector by 2035.” The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) said Thursday TVA ”has the ability and resources to lead by example and demonstrate the path to zero carbon. … Not fifteen years later.” The group challenged TVA to set a carbon-zero goal for 2030. 

“The current TVA CEO’s public statements are out of step with the Biden Administration’s goals,” said SACE executive director Dr. Stephen Smith. “With accountable leadership, collaborative planning, and commitment, TVA has the opportunity to, once again, embrace the mission and to be a ‘utility yardstick’ of innovative environmental stewardship and job creation.”

TVA said its carbon-reduction strategy has already included adding 1,600 megawatts of new nuclear capacity, adding 1,600 megawatts of wind and solar capacity, retiring 8,600 megawatts of coal capacity by 2023, and investing $400 million to promote energy efficiency. TVA president and CEO Jeff Lyash said these steps build a strong foundation for “supplying cleaner energy without impacting reliability or low cost.”

 “TVA is an industry leader in carbon reduction, but we aren’t satisfied,” Lyash said in a statement. “We are focused on increasing carbon reduction while maintaining our commitment to the low-cost, reliable energy our customers expect and deserve.”

A new plan approved by the TVA board Thursday outlines decarbonization milestones over the next 30 years. To get there, the agency said it will continue to expand renewable generation, expand battery storage capacity, retire all coal plants by 2035, and more. Details of these plans will be developed in the coming months, TVA said, and all of them will seek public input. 

But SACE said TVA also intends to build 1,500 megawatts of fossil gas capacity that will be online by 2023. Its goal to retire fossil plants by 2035 may be “potentially improbable” if TVA continues to build such plants.   

”In fact, SACE’s recent analysis shows that according to TVA’s latest resource plans and announced projects, and taking into account TVA’s history and projected rate of decarbonization, TVA is not on track to fully decarbonize by 2050,” reads a SACE statement. “Without announcing formal resource plans that greatly increase utilization of clean energy like solar, energy efficiency, and battery storage that can be analyzed through an integrated resource planning (IRP) process, there is no guarantee TVA will reach net-zero emissions even by 2050.”

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Report: Tennessee Valley Authority Lags on Solar Power

CREDIT: MLGW

Southern Alliance for Clean Energy

Solar power keeps getting brighter in the Southeast but glows dimly in states served by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), according to a report. But TVA touts a new program that will allow for more solar growth.

The new Solar in the Southeast report is the third from the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE), a group based in Knoxville. The report focuses on the watts of solar power available for customers in seven states: Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.

“The unbiased watts per customer metric continues to shine a light on which states and utilities demonstrate leadership year after year and which are continuing to fall behind and need a serious course correction to avoid denying customers the economic and environmental benefits of clean solar power,” said Bryan Jacob, SACE’s solar program director.

The first solar report predicted Southeastern utilities would produce 10,000 megawatts of solar power by 2019, which they did by the end of last year. The group is now predicting that figure will double by 2022 and will ramp up to 25,000 megawatts of solar power by 2023. If utilities hit this prediction, the Southeast could have more than 10 percent of its total power capacity from the sun.

MLGW

A solar panel array at Agricenter International

Solar power is taking off in North Carolina and South Carolina, according to the report, as three utilities in those states take the top three slots for overall solar power capacity. TVA ranks 10th on this list of 14 utilities, clocking in at 99 megawatts of solar power available for each of its customers.

Each year, SACE identifies solar power leaders in the Southeast (SunRisers) and solar power laggers (SunBlockers). TVA again earned a SunBlocker designation from the group for cutting its Green Power Providers program but also for ”promoting misleading claims of solar growth,” which earned it a “dishonorable mention again for this reporting cycle.”

“Hyperbolic claims of ’up to’ 14 gigawatts of solar are not only inaccurate, they are intentionally misleading,” reads the study. “The actual budget that was requested and approved is for 5.5 gigawatts by 2030.

“That is the more reliable ’plan’ the SACE forecast is predicated on, and most of that solar is planned for the latter years of that timespan. Between now and 2023, TVA anticipates 800 megawatts of new utility-scale solar across the entire region, with most of that dedicated to specific, non-residential customers.”

TVA says it is “a national leader in carbon reduction, with nearly 60 percent carbon-free energy generation,” making its system the “greenest” in the Southeast. This system includes nuclear and hydroelectric power generation.

First Congo’s first solar panels

Last week, TVA touted a new program for local power companies like Memphis Light, Gas and Water (MLGW) that would allow them to generate more solar power. Power companies that have signed TVA’s 20-year long-term partnership agreements can generate up to 5 percent of their average energy needs.

MLGW has not yet signed such an agreement with TVA. Officials here are still considering a possible move away from TVA that, according to numerous studies, could save the utility and Memphis customers millions of dollars each year and allow more flexibility to generate power. MLGW does not generate any power now, buying it all from TVA at about $1 billion per year.

If all 154 local power companies signed TVA’s long-term contract and all of them generated their allowed 5 percent of solar power, they could collectively generate between 800 megawatts and 2,000 megawatts of power, according to TVA.

“TVA’s integrated resource strategy continues to bring cleaner, greener power to the region while maintaining low rates and reliability,” Doug Perry, TVA senior vice president of Commercial Energy Solutions, said in a statement. “This option empowering local generation adds another avenue to grow distributed and renewable energy resources across the valley.

“Working with our local power company partners, we continue to bring new solutions to market that reduce carbon, meet changing customer needs, and attract jobs into our communities.”

Clewisleake | Dreamstime.com

The West Tennessee Solar Farm

The Southeast is becoming a “regional solar powerhouse,” according to SACE executive director Dr. Stephen A. Smith, but more work needs to be done.

“We are pleased to see key utilities in some southeastern states continuing to grow our region’s vast solar resource,” Smith said. Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, and South Carolina are all making significant progress, but this begs the question of why Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi continue to lag behind.

“Leadership in legislative and regulatory policy coupled with real leadership by certain utilities has the South becoming a regional solar powerhouse.”

Read SACE’s full report here.

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More Power to You: TVA Plan

CREDIT: Tennessee Valley Authority

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) will harness more solar energy over the next 20 years, more wind power if it gets cheaper, and less power from coal. But some say its environmental goals don’t go far enough.

The TVA dropped its final Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) late last week, the culmination of a process that began in February 2018. That plan is a basic roadmap the nation’s largest power supplier will follow to meet the ever-growing needs for power to 154 local power companies and 58 other customers throughout the Valley.

Tennessee Valley Authority

At the heart of the plan is the mix of energy sources TVA says it will likely use over the next 20 years. Picking that mix was driven largely by the need of diverse and flexible sources of energy and a federal mandate for low costs, TVA said in its report issued Friday.

TVA measures that mix in megawatts, or 1 million watts of power, enough to power about 750 homes at once. So, how much does it need? In its 2018 fiscal year, TVA provided more than 163 million megawatt-hours of electricity to its customers.

Coal power will reduce as TVA retires two coal-fired plants, in Paradise (Kentucky) and Bull Run (Tennessee). TVA will try to renew a 20-year license to operate its Browns Ferry (Tennessee) nuclear plant. It will up its use of combined cycle plants, like our Allen plant, over the next 20 years. How much, though, (maybe up to 9,800 megawatts by 2038) depends on demand and natural gas prices.

As for renewables, TVA said they’re definitely in the mix. Solar power could expand on the TVA grid (as much as 14,000 megawatts by 2038) if the demand is there. TVA said it could add up to 4,200 megawatts of wind power to its mix by 2038 if it becomes cost-effective.

Environmental groups gave TVA some credit for “moving in a smarter economic and environmental direction,” according to a statement from the Sierra Club’s Southeast region chapter, but the agency has a long way to go.

“Renewable energy technologies are smarter and safer than fossil fuels, and it’s now known that they’re the cheapest form of new electricity generation across most of the world — cheaper than both coal and gas,” said the Sierra Club’s Al Armendariz. “So, even as TVA is making positive strides in this new plan, its leaders must start planning for an energy future that doesn’t just trade coal for gas — which not only exposes customers to a volatile market, but also worsens the climate crisis.”

The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) did note that TVA’s new plan does include “recommendations for greater energy efficiency, transparency, and renewables.” But the group called the energy plan “outdated and a blow to customers.”

For one, it said, the plan undervalues energy-efficiency savings for customers. For example, Duke Energy Carolinas customers get seven times more savings from efficiencies than TVA customers.

Also, TVA’s solar plans, SACE said, would only benefit big business customers like Google and Facebook. Residential and small business customers here are “being left out and left behind” on potential solar savings.

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Lawmakers Want a More Transparent TVA

Lawmakers Want a More Transparent TVA

The Tennessee General Assembly and Governor Bill Lee added their voices to the chorus of lawmakers who think the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) should make all of its meetings open to the public.

TVA conducts its four, quarterly meetings in public. But committees meet in secret before those public meetings to discuss issues on the TVA’s upcoming agenda. A TVA spokesman said, though, committee meetings “are not decision-making meetings and a quorum of board directors is not present.”

In January, two Tennessee Congressmen — U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Knoxville) and U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Memphis) — introduced the Tennessee Valley Authority Transparency Act of 2019. That bill ”would require meetings of the TVA Board to be held in public, properly noticed, and make available minutes and summaries of each meeting.”

State lawmakers in both houses passed a resolution this year signing on to the idea that TVA’s meetings should be public. It was passed unanimously in the Senate. It received only one “present not voting” action from one of the House’s 94 members present the day of the vote. Speakers in the House and Senate signed the resolution last Monday. Lee signed it the next day.

The resolution says all the lawmakers ”strongly support the passage of the Tennessee Valley Authority Transparency Act of 2019.”

“…it is vitally important to the citizens of Tennessee that TVA, as an entity created and protected by Congress, should conduct their business in the open and be as transparent as possible…,” it reads.

The state resolution was filed by Sen. Ken Yager (R-Kingston). He said he “could not agree more with what” Burchett was “trying to do” with his bill.

”We all know…that the TVA is the steward of billions of dollars of ratepayers’ money,” Yager said. “But they also make rules that govern the lives and effect the lives of everybody else in Tennessee, not the least of which are the property owners of this state.

“I just think in the spirit of transparency, and open government, these meetings — all their meetings — should be open. When Congressmen Burchett filed the bill, I wanted to give the legislature the opportunity to show their support with a resolution.”
[pdf-1]
When asked about the resolution Tuesday, TVA spokesman Scott Brooks said, “TVA is a federal agency and follows direction and guidance provided by Congress.”

Brooks also gave a list of details ”about our current efforts to remain open and transparent.” Here it is:
• TVA is one of very few government agencies that file detailed financial reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

• Significant decisions are preceded by various assessments according to the National Environmental Policy Act, which include public comment periods.
[pullquote-1] • TVA routinely posts detailed information through public channels, including public meetings, webcasts, our website and social media.

• TVA responds thoughtfully to FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests that come in from members of the public.

• TVA board meetings have been, and remain, open to the public.

• Board meetings are streamed live on TVA’s website and videos are available for viewing after each meeting.

• The board hosts public listening sessions prior to each board meeting.

• TVA Board committee meetings are not decision-making meetings and a quorum of board directors is not present.

• Confidential and sensitive information is shared in committee meetings to allow directors to provide better oversight.

• Committee meetings are often held in TVA operation areas that contain unique safety and security considerations.

When Burchett filed the bill in January he said, “I had a good, informative meeting with (former) TVA CEO Bill Johnson this week, and while I understand that TVA has reasons for not wanting to open all meetings to the public, as an entity created and protected by Congress, the public deserves to know the Authority’s business is as open and transparent as possible.”
[pullquote-2] Lindsay Pace, Tennessee regional organizer on the Renew TN campaign, wrote Monday that TVA’s board meetings are “highly scripted” with ”the real discussion between board members happening behind closed doors in committee meetings.” But the lack of transparency does not end there, Pace wrote on the blog for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE). 
SACE

Cynthia Brown delivers public comments at one of the last TVA board meetings in which public comment was allowed to happen the same day as the board meeting. The public is no longer allowed to provide comment during the actual TVA board meetings.

“Currently, there are very few opportunities for the public to engage with TVA and what little interaction the public had has severely diminished with the change in structure to the board meetings,” Pace wrote. “Last fall, TVA made the decision to split the public listening session from the board meetings, with the listening session now being held the day prior to the board meeting and not live streamed online like the rest of the board meeting.

“Both the listening session and board meeting are held during typical workday hours, which has resulted in forcing many of those who want to attend to choose between the two, since taking consecutive days off work is not feasible for the majority of working people.”