TVA’s possible coal extensions unravel rationale given for new gas

The Tennessee Valley Authority is considering extending the life of its coal plants. 

Or, at least, that is what the utility is saying publicly. 

“TVA is very concerned about how they are being viewed by the Trump administration,” said Stephen Smith, director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. 

TVA currently operates four coal plants: Kingston, near Knoxville, Cumberland, near Clarksville, Gallatin, about 30 miles from Nashville, and Shawnee, in Paducah, Kentucky. 

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The Tennessee Valley Authority has been rapidly expanding its system of gas plants, which use fracked methane to produce electricity.

In 2021, TVA announced a plan to retire all coal plants by 2035. Two of the coal plants, at Kingston and Cumberland, are scheduled to close completely by 2027 and 2028, respectively, and be replaced with equivalent gas generation. 

“Substantial performance and cost risk is carried by operating a coal fleet reaching the end of its useful life,” TVA wrote at the time. “Unplanned outage rate, a component of availability, is the primary driver of challenges.” Many Tennesseans experienced this firsthand during Winter Storm Elliott two years ago, when TVA issued rolling blackouts after coal and gas plants failed. 

But earlier this month, TVA changed its tune, shortly after President Donald Trump signed executive orders aimed at reviving the coal industry and granted TVA exemptions to Biden-era coal pollution regulations. 

“We’re evaluating our coal units’ lifespans,” TVA’s new CEO Don Moul said during a recent board meeting. “We continue to depend on them to help power this region.” 

Moul declined an interview request from WPLN News about the possible extensions. Wade White, a member of the TVA Board, the utility’s main regulator, also declined an interview with WPLN News at a meeting in early May.

TVA undermines one of its key arguments for new fossil fuel generation 

TVA may find it difficult to extend use of the Kingston or Cumberland coal plants, because the utility would have to get permission to emit two kinds of dangerous fossil fuel pollution simultaneously, as new gas plants at those sites come online. All four of the utility’s coal plants rank among the top five climate polluters in Tennessee and Kentucky — with Cumberland consistently ranking as the top emitter. Air pollution from these plants is also linked to hundreds of premature deaths each year.

Or TVA could burn coal longer if any gas plant construction gets behind schedule. But that undermines one of TVA’s main arguments for building new gas plants in the first place: its self-determined deadline for coal retirement. 

When proposing a 1.5-gigawatt gas plant for Kingston, for example, TVA suggested that the gas plant was the only option for generation because of how quickly it needed to shut down the coal plant — an argument scrutinized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last year. 

“TVA dismisses the lower costs, lower financial risks, and far superior environmental performance of [the solar option] by arguing that solar cells could not be installed by 2027,” EPA wrote in a letter to the utility. “The imperative of 2027 closure of the [Kingston coal plant] is not adequately disclosed. If closure by 2027 is an imperative, then TVA created an alternative that is technically infeasible and therefore not a viable alternative.”

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TVA’s own transmission queue challenges this idea. As of January 2025, the utility had about 8.6 GW worth of solar and battery projects, with requested dates of June 2025 or later, waiting to be developed and added to the grid. That is more power than TVA’s entire gas buildout this decade.

Last year, TVA said it takes an average of “5.4 years” for a solar project to come online, but experts say TVA could speed up the rate at which it’s bringing solar projects online. 

“If TVA had the proper ambition and motivation, they could be building out solar and storage to scale,” Smith said. “They choose not to, and they choose then to mislead the public that it’s not possible.” 

TVA made a similar argument for the Cumberland site a few years ago. That coal plant is the largest in the fleet, providing a capacity of roughly 2.4 GW. TVA plans to add a nearly 1.5-GW gas plant on site and a 0.9-GW gas plant in Cheatham County, about 20 miles from Nashville. 

TVA stressed the need to have replacement generation by 2026 to replace the first of the coal plant’s two units.

“If the first Cumberland unit must stay in operation beyond 2026, significant investment would be required to maintain safe and reliable operations and comply with environmental regulations,” TVA wrote in an environmental review. “Operation beyond 2026 would also inject operational risk back into the TVA system due to the deteriorating condition of the coal units.”

So, why would TVA now say it is considering keeping its coal plants running longer? 

The U.S. ‘national energy emergency’ 

President Donald Trump declared a “national energy emergency” on his first day in office. 

This was not an effort to mitigate the climate crisis. The Trump administration purged those words from government websites, and reduced or cut scientific reports, data tools like the “billion-dollar disasters” database, and scientists from the federal workforce. 

The Senate will also soon consider the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which would repeal tax credits for clean energy development in the nation’s first big climate law — which has a special provision for the Tennessee Valley Authority — and incentives for consumer purchases on items like electric vehicles and solar water heaters. The new bill threatens the national trend: Solar, wind and batteries were forecasted to make up 93% of new electric generation this year. (However, that isn’t the Tennessee trend.)

Trump instead wants to boost fossil fuel production. Many of his executive orders aim to expedite oil and gas projects and reduce regulations on pollution. 

For context, the U.S. became the world’s largest producer of gas in 2011, surpassing Russia, and the largest producer of oil in 2018, surpassing Saudi Arabia. The nation reached record fossil fuel production under Biden. Some scientists and environmentalists say the U.S. is now, under Trump, a “petrostate.”

Trump also wants to salvage the declining coal industry, which may partially explain TVA’s willingness to open the conversation on extensions. 

“Much of this is a political discussion that TVA is having publicly to send a signal to the Trump administration that they’re responding to some of Trump’s desires,” Smith, the director, said. 

Coal use has been waning for over a decade, largely due to cheaper options like gas and renewables. Nearly all coal plants in the U.S. are more expensive to run than the cost of building renewable replacements, according to a 2023 study by Energy Innovation, without factoring in tax credits or environmental regulations.  

More coal was retired during Trump’s first administration than during the Biden presidency or Obama’s second term.

Although coal remains the dirtiest fuel for energy, Smith said, Trump has created a pathway for delays.

“We’re seeing lots of things starting to slip in the wrong direction,” Smith said. “The environment doesn’t care about politics. The physics are going to happen, and that’s what we’re most worried about.”