by Jonathan Levenshus, Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign
The Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign in Tennessee is ready to replace TVA’s coal plants with clean renewable energy and better energy efficiency in 2021. Here’s a summary of what’s been happening in the electric sector and what lies ahead for our work.
As we close out 2020 and look ahead to 2021, I want to share some of the top trends in the power sector from my role as the representative for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign in Tennessee.
First, the coal tipping point has arrived. Utilities announced plans in 2020 to retire over 30,000 megawatts of coal-fired power from the electric grid in the next 10 years. This was the biggest year for announced coal retirements ever, and it included the single biggest announcement from the biggest climate polluter in the U.S. Coal plants are now contributing less than 20 percent of the nation’s electric mix.
While the Tennessee Valley Authority, TVA, has been slowly moving away from coal over the last few years, it remains one the nation’s most heavily invested utilities in coal generation. According to TVA’s most recent long-range energy plan, 4 coal plants across the Tennessee Valley will run well past 2030. That’s unacceptable. TVA can fulfill its statutory mandate of providing low-cost, reliable electricity to its customers without its coal plants operating for several more decades.
Second, solar generation across the U.S. is up -- way up! More and more utilities made coal-to-solar announcements this year, aided by growing customer interest. Even TVA is making strides to increase its solar portfolio. New solar farms in Tennessee and Alabama will support corporate customers like Google and Facebook. And, through its new Green Invest Program, local power companies in Nashville and Knoxville will work with TVA and other partners to build local renewable energy projects.
TVA, however, continues to make it harder and harder for people to invest in rooftop solar power. In 2020, the board of directors approved a policy that could allow local power companies to impose discriminatory rates on rooftop solar customers. We’ll be urging local power companies to avoid putting punitive fees on solar customers’ bills this year. We’ll also be encouraging them to identify new projects to match the growing demand for more clean, renewable power in the region.
Third, plans for building new gas plants around the country are down. Gas is sinking into an increasingly small corner of the market, which is good news.
TVA, however, is still planning to build up to 17,000 megawatts of new gas generation before 2040. It would be a big mistake for TVA to build that much dirty, expensive, and risky gas in the future. TVA should not trade one fossil fuel for another, especially when renewable energy is already more cost effective and reliable than fossil fuels. As TVA rolls out new gas proposals this year, the Sierra Club will be ready to stop them from getting across the finish line.
Fourth, in 2020 we learned justice is racial justice is economic justice is gender justice is environmental justice is climate justice. Coalitions were formed across the Tennessee Valley to fight utility shut-offs and connect pollution burdens with energy burdens. These coalitions will play a key role in making sure that TVA achieves a vision for a clean energy economy that is rooted in justice, and that secures our future by creating good-paying jobs, addressing climate change, and improving our health.
And, finally, our bedrock environmental laws are still critical to forcing utilities to reckon with their pollution. Despite 4 years of Trump rollbacks of air and water protections, the incoming Biden administration gives us hope that we can reduce harmful pollution from the power sector and still grow the economy in an equitable way, including right here in the Tennessee Valley.
For decades, we witnessed TVA pass its environmental costs on to the public. Following the Kingston coal ash disaster in 2008, TVA committed to dry-processing its coal ash waste at all of its coal plants. TVA is still working toward that goal, but large quantities of toxic pollutants are still getting into our waterways. Instead of fighting the safeguards that were meant to fix this problem, TVA lobbied the EPA for years to set less stringent pollution limits for its coal plants so it wouldn’t have to install new, modern pollution control technologies.
TVA was the only utility in the U.S. to receive a special exemption from the Trump EPA when the agency finalized new water pollution standards last summer. The exemption means the Cumberland coal plant northwest of Nashville will continue polluting our local waterways, leaving an outsized and lasting effect on the health and safety of all Tennesseans. TVA should reject this special handout and immediately create a time-bound coal closure and transition plan for the Cumberland coal plant.
Looking ahead, the stakes will only continue to rise on advancing just and equitable clean energy solutions in the Tennessee Valley. I’m confident that TVA will shift its energy system to a modern, zero-carbon path, that relies on clean and innovative new technologies, not just the outdated and expensive sources, like coal and nuclear power, that got us to 2020. But it will take hundreds of volunteers across our state to push TVA to do the right thing.
It will be a win-win for this beautiful state if we do it right -- cleaner air and water, healthier people, more prosperity, more equity, more economic opportunity. The clean energy solutions that are key to unlocking these benefits are well-known, cost-competitive, and available right now.
2020 helped set the stage for the clean energy transition across the country, and now we need to muster the courage and take the next steps to make this transition a reality for Tennessee.
Jonathan Levenshus is the Director of Federal Campaigns, Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign, former Knoxvillian, and long-time TVA advisor.