TVA plans first major battery storage addition

The Tennessee Valley Authority plans to add ample storage to its grid by the end of the decade. 

The public utility announced that it was targeting up to 1.5 gigawatts of battery storage — the equivalent of one its largest gas plants under construction, like the Kingston project — by the end of 2029. 

“We’re trying to drive a sense of urgency with these assets,” TVA’s chief business officer Jeremy Fisher said during a board meeting Thursday.

TVA has been expanding its system this decade, mostly with new gas plants.

Battery storage can strengthen grids, whether systems are dominated by fuels or have high renewable penetration like in California and Texas.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Lab has described energy storage as “crucial” to developing a resilient, low-carbon power grid. 

TVA considered as much as 5 GW of storage in its last long-term plan in 2019, but the utility added just 370 megawatts, or about 0.4 GW, between 2019 and 2025. 

TVA has at least 38 GW of total energy capacity, between its owned and purchased power. TVA will soon release an overview of its system in its annual financial filing to the federal government this month.

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The Tennessee Valley Authority sourced 53% of its energy mix from fossil fuels in fiscal year 2025.

In the past fiscal year, TVA’s energy use was split between 34% gas, 33% nuclear, 19% coal, 10% hydro and 4% renewables, according to TVA’s presentation to the board on Thursday. Nuclear use dropped as the utility faced outages at all seven of its reactors this past year. The lost generation was primarily replaced by fossil fuels. 

Currently, storage represents a small percentage of the utility’s capacity. TVA has some battery facilities and storage through pumped hydropower.