Photo by Todd Waterman
Christine Ho, christine.ho@sierraclub.org
Knoxville, T.N. - Today, Sierra Club members attended the Tennessee Valley Authority’s board meeting to express concerns regarding the reliance on toxic fossil fuels in the country’s largest federal utility’s long-term energy plan.
Last year, TVA released a draft of its energy plan called an Integrated Resource Plan, which provided various scenarios the utility may pursue in the next decade to ensure reliable energy for its ten million customers. In most of the scenarios, TVA prioritizes gas before healthier, more resilient renewable energy options despite TVA’s own modeling showing that renewable energy performs best across its own metrics.
The TVA board will finalize its IRP this spring.
At the board meeting, Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign Manager Amy Kelly issued the following statement:
“As the largest federal utility in the country, TVA has a duty to lead by example and finalize an energy plan that delivers clean, affordable, and reliable energy to all of its customers.
“The final energy plan will have a generational impact on communities across the seven-state region TVA serves. If the board continues to prioritize dirty, expensive and volatile fossil fuels, it will jeopardize the health of millions of families, cause irrevocable damage to our environment, and threaten to leave customers out in the cold when gas plants fail during extreme weather, as they often do.
“It is always the right time to make the right choice and put people first. We hope TVA will finalize an IRP that maximizes the plethora of renewable energy options, and lead the charge towards a cleaner, healthier and energy secure future for our region.”