US TVA chief suggests coal plants could see longer life, environmental groups vow to fight

By Timothy Gardner and Nichola Groom

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Environmental groups on Monday slammed comments by the head of the U.S.-owned Tennessee Valley Authority suggesting the utility’s four coal-fired power plants could continue to operate after a planned shutdown in 2035.

TVA’s CEO Don Moul said last week that the utility was evaluating executive orders signed by President Donald Trump last month that seek to save coal plants likely to be shut, cut regulations on coal plants, and reduce barriers to coal mining.

"We are re-evaluating the end-of-life study that we did on our coal fleet and we’re taking a hard look at our asset strategy with respect to what the regulatory environment is in front of us," Moul said last week after a quarterly financial call.

Moul said two of the plants, Shawnee, in Kentucky, and Gallatin in Tennessee, have a "strong potential to continue to operate for the foreseeable future as long as we have the regulatory allowance." He said the two other plants, Kingston and Cumberland, both in Tennessee, are more limited by regulations but there are more decisions to make in the future.

The four TVA plants have a capacity of 7,000 megawatts, enough to power more than 4 million homes. In 2021, TVA said it planned to shut the plants by 2035, as they would have reached the end of their life cycle by then. The year 2035 was also the time that then-President Joe Biden wanted the power grid to be decarbonized to fight climate change.

Utilities are scrambling to secure power generation as U.S. electricity demand is growing for the first time in decades on growth in data centers for artificial intelligence.

Scott Brooks, a TVA spokesperson, said on Monday that the utility’s outlook includes additional power generation needs into 2050. "We’re exploring all options to meet those needs."

Bonnie Swinford, an organizer at the Sierra Club, said her organization will fight any extension.

"These expensive, unreliable coal plants are not serving Tennesseans any more than a screen door on a submarine," Swinford said. "We deserve clean, affordable energy that paves the way for a healthier future for our community."

Howard Crystal, the legal director for the energy justice program at the Center for Biological Diversity, said he hoped any extension of the plants would not be a precedent.

"It sends absolutely the wrong message ... to the world about our nation’s commitment to addressing climate change and cleaning up polluting forms of energy."