The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has moved to retire its iconic 1.3-GW Kingston Fossil Plant in Tennessee in 2027 and change it—with notable urgency—with a 1.5-GW fashionable advanced that includes a mixed cycle fuel turbine (CCGT) plant, aero-derivative generators, 100 MW of battery storage, and as much as 4 MW of photo voltaic era.
The nation’s largest public energy firm mentioned its “troublesome” choice unveiled on April 2 to retire the nine-unit coal facility in Roane County follows a multi-year public course of. In a report of choice (ROD), TVA mentioned the “want for [Kingston] to function at full capability has decreased” given the evolution of its producing fleet over the previous 10 to fifteen years—primarily pushed by additions of nuclear, fuel, and renewable assets.
TVA mentioned it had resorted to extra frequent biking of Kingston’s models to satisfy fluctuating hundreds. “Nonetheless, [Kingston] was not designed for all these operations, which presents reliability challenges which can be troublesome to anticipate and costly to mitigate,” it mentioned. The coal plant’s design capability of 1.7 GW had fallen to a summer season internet producing capability of 1.3 GW, given the “results of ageing gear and long-term gasoline mix adjustments,” TVA famous. “As TVA continues to transition the remainder of its fleet to cleaner and extra versatile applied sciences, [Kingston] will frequently be challenged to function reliably,” it mentioned.
The utility additionally highlighted the “important financial funding” required to adjust to federal environmental guidelines, together with the Environmental Safety Company’s 2020 Effluent Limitation Tips. “Continued operation of [Kingston] past 2027 would create operational, and subsequently reliability dangers in TVA’s system because of the deteriorating situation of the coal models,” the ROD notes.
As well as, if Kingston’s operation continued past 2027, it will “probably lead to cascading delays for the later deliberate retirements in TVA’s phased 2035 coal fleet retirement plan and trigger delay in TVA’s plans to combine extra photo voltaic and storage property onto the system,” it mentioned. “Thus, [Kingston] was advisable for retirement by the tip of 2027.”
An Urgency to Substitute Kingston’s Era with 1.5 GW by 2027
Kingston’s era can be changed with the operation of a pure gas-fired CCGT mixed with 16 dual-fueled aero-derivative combustion generators, a 3 MW to 4 MW photo voltaic website, a 100-MW battery storage website, together with a brand new 161-kV switchyard on the Kingston Reservation. “This can be a first-of-its-kind facility at TVA,” the utility famous.
A TVA spokesperson instructed POWER the ROD kicks off the expertise choice and procurement course of. “Till now no choices have been made,” he mentioned. Nonetheless, he famous TVA is concentrating on beginning operations on the gas-fired energy plant earlier than Kingston is retired on the finish of 2027. The ROD underscores that urgency, noting that the substitute era “should proceed to keep up the planning reserve margins and to offer transmission system voltage assist to the native space that’s wanted to keep up general system stability and reliability.”
For now, TVA plans to produce the brand new gas-fired models with gasoline procured through a brand new 122-mile pure fuel pipeline, dubbed the “Ridgeline Enlargement Venture.” East Tennessee Pure Gasoline (ETNG) will construct the pipeline and related compressor station, and metering and regulation services. The pipeline challenge would require approval from the Federal Power Regulatory Fee (FERC).
The substitute plan is a most popular different outlined in TVA’s 2019 Built-in Useful resource Plan (IRP), which led the utility to start conducting end-of-life evaluations of its working coal-fired fleet. These evaluations finally led the utility to conclude that retiring its total coal fleet by 2035 would “align with least-cost planning and cut back financial, reliability, and environmental dangers.”
The urgency to construct substitute era can be bolstered by Kingston’s distinctive location in East Tennessee, TVA suggests. Whereas the utility has an energetic interconnection queue of near 30 GW, greater than half is for photo voltaic and storage, and TVA acknowledges a “significant slice” could also be non-viable. In the meantime, “Renewable tasks in queue are typically positioned in areas which can be extra appropriate for photo voltaic, resembling West Tennessee, North Alabama, and North Mississippi, not within the East Tennessee area the place [Kingston] is positioned,” the ROD notes. “The queued tasks usually are not able to assembly the aim and must assist era within the East Tennessee area and to offer substitute capability by the tip of 2027.”
Nonetheless, in accordance with TVA President and CEO Jeff Lyash, the chance to construct substitute era could supply strong new prospects as decarbonization builds momentum. Modern gas-fired expertise offers choices, he famous. It’s “expertise that, in the long term, could also be hydrogen gasoline, it may be backed with carbon seize when that expertise is offered,” he mentioned on Tuesday. “This advantages vitality safety and sustainability right here in jap Tennessee and throughout our complete seven-state footprint.”
Kingston Fossil Plant: An Iconic Coal Plant
Nonetheless, TVA’s choice to interchange Kingston’s coal-fired models is monumental. Whereas TVA started its coal-fired building program within the Forties to hold out its authentic mission to spur financial growth within the Tennessee Valley and Appalachia, the vast majority of its coal models had been positioned in service between 1951 and 1973.
However as we speak, TVA operates solely 4 coal-fired energy crops, a dramatic discount from simply 10 years in the past, when TVA produced 74,583 GWh—or about 52% of its whole era—from 53 energetic models at 11 coal crops. Together with Kingston, TVA’s coal-fired working fleet consists of the two.5-GW, two-unit Cumberland station in Tennessee, 4 models on the 976-MW Gallatin plant in Tennessee, and the 1.2-GW, nine-unit Shawnee plant in Kentucky.
A map exhibiting TVA’s property throughout its seven-state footprint. Supply: TVA
In 2023, TVA authorized the retirement of Cumberland, which has operated since 1968, by 2028, transferring to interchange it with a 1,450-MW pure gas-fired CCGT. Cumberland’s fuel models are slated to be on-line by the tip of 2026, when the primary coal unit retires, a spokesperson instructed POWER. “No choices have been made on the retirement of Gallatin and Shawnee,” he added. At Shawnee, notably, TVA is slated to pioneer a utility-scale photo voltaic era website (dubbed Venture Phoenix) constructed on the plant’s closed 309-acre coal ash website utilizing a patented closure cap system referred to as ClosureTurf.
Over the previous yr, in the meantime, TVA has added about 1.5 GW of latest gas-fired era. These embrace three combustion turbine models, a mixed 750 MW, on the Colbert Combustion Turbine website in North Alabama. In December 2023, it added one other 750 MW with three new models on the Paradise Mixed Cycle plant close to Drakesboro, Kentucky. Extra fuel models are slated to come back on-line over the subsequent few years. Together with the Cumberland CCGT, TVA plans so as to add 500 MW of peaking aero-derivative combustion generators at Johnsonville in late 2024 and 300 MW of photo voltaic at Lawrence County and Shawnee by late 2028.
Kingston’s 9 models had been constructed between 1951 and 1955 on the 2,254-acre Kingston Reservation on the Clinch and Emory rivers in Harriman, Roane County, as an answer to satisfy the rising demand for vitality from the close by Oak Ridge Nationwide Laboratory. The nationwide lab, on the time, “was ramping up manufacturing of atomic protection materials because of the Korean battle,” TVA notes. When it was completed in 1955, Kingston “stood as the most important coal-burning energy plant on the planet—a distinction it held for greater than a decade,” it says. Whereas the plant burned about 14,000 tons of coal a day, it furnished the area with dependable energy—of about 10 TWh a yr.
The plant’s historic legacy, nevertheless, additionally features a devastating coal ash catastrophe in December 2008, which launched 1.1 billion gallons of coal fly ash slurry. The catastrophe stemming from a damaged dike was mentioned to have left 4 or 5 toes of water and dirt over 250 to 400 acres of rural land. The incident prompted the Obama administration to develop new guidelines regulating coal combustion ash. TVA has since carried out a number of measures to watch and include its coal ash from working and shuttered coal crops. In 2022, TVA recycled 82% of the coal ash produced for the manufacture of wallboard and cement, in addition to a substitute for Portland cement in concrete.
A ‘Very Tough’ Resolution
TVA’s executives on Tuesday hailed Kingston’s 70-year legacy and its regional significance. “Kingston has been a workhorse for TVA for over 70 years. It’s a part of the success of this area,” mentioned Lyash. “And so it’s with nice pleasure that we transfer on from these models and retire, however they should be changed. The world is rising,” he added. “Retiring these models and changing them with expertise that’s extra dependable, extra resilient, and cleaner just isn’t a simple choice, however it’s the appropriate factor to do for our vitality safety going ahead.”
Kris Edmondson, TVA vp of Energy Operations, additionally famous the choice to retire the enduring plant was “very troublesome,” given its place in TVA tradition. “One of the difficult issues while you retire a coal plant is the affect on the individuals. And at Kingston, we’ve bought virtually 200 staff there,” he mentioned.
“They’re very dedicated, gifted craftsmen, operations, upkeep [who] have executed an distinctive job assembly the mission. And so for every of them, once we say we’re closing a plant, it’s impactful. It’s a component of uncertainty—[they ask] what’s subsequent for me?” he mentioned. “And so one of many issues that’s actually essential for us as we make this transition is ensuring we assist all of our staff with subsequent steps.”
Edmonton mentioned TVA already has an in depth workforce plan in place to “keep coal plant experience and supply alternatives for workers to judge choices and put together for subsequent profession steps.” The plan consists of alternatives to switch to different TVA places “the place worker skillsets are wanted, positions in different applied sciences providing coaching to assist the transition to a brand new job in TVA, and supporting staff fascinated with retiring,” he mentioned.
—Sonal Patel is a POWER senior editor (@sonalcpatel, @POWERmagazine).