Nuclear rises, coal recedes in TVA long-term plan

Oct 14 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Ed Marcum The Knoxville News-Sentinel, Tenn.

TVA planners finishing up the analysis of a long-term energy resource plan favor a strategy that would expand nuclear capacity after 2018, increase emphasis on renewable energy sources and idle about 3,000 megawatts of coal-generated power capacity.

This was what planners termed "Plan C," or the Diversity Focused Resource Portfolio strategy, one of five strategies considered as part of TVA's Integrated Resource Plan. A draft version of the plan was unveiled before dozens of people gathered in an auditorium at TVA headquarters Wednesday evening.

The plan is not final. Gary Brinkworth, the TVA manager heading the project, said it will be refined, public comment factored in, other analysis done and a final document produced. The goal is to finish by February so the TVA Board of Directors can vote on a final plan in April, Brinkworth said.

He and Van Wardlaw, TVA executive vice president of enterprise relations, explained the plan, then members of the audience and others listening in online were allowed to ask questions.

Last updated in 1995, the plan is meant to link TVA's strategic vision with its activities, Wardlaw said. Most utilities have such plans and they seek to evaluate power demand, options for meeting that demand, and economic and other factors that will affect those options.

Rather than try to predict the future, TVA used a scenario-based approach with the plan, Brinkworth said. TVA looked at seven possible scenarios for how power demand, the economy, environmental regulations and other factors might play out and used computer modeling to test five planning strategies against them.

Plan C emerged as the one that would provide the best results across a variety of scenarios, he said. It calls for adding nuclear power capacity after 2018, adding new gas-fired power capacity as needed, increased emphasis on energy efficiency, demand-response measures and renewable energy sources, adding a pumped-storage hydropower unit and idling 3,000 megawatts of coal-fired capacity.

Among those in the audience, two representatives of solar power companies argued for more emphasis on that energy source; two University of Tennessee nuclear engineering students praised the plan's emphasis on nuclear energy; and two members of the Sierra Club said the Integrated Resource Plan didn't do enough to cut carbon and sulphur emissions.

TVA is hosting a public comment period through Nov. 8, and Brinkworth said each comment or question will receive a response from TVA.

A draft of the plan and an option for sending comments to TVA are online at www.tva.com/irp.

Business writer Ed Marcum may be reached at 865-342-6267.