TVA's future should not rely on natural gas, but rather on renewable energy | Opinion
Nashville Electric Service (NES) customers just got a glimpse into a future of high electricity rates with an increase of about 10% because of rising fuel costs for Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) — sole electricity supplier to NES. TVA’s higher costs are not driven by renewable energy but by increased prices and the volatility of fossil fuels, especially methane gas.
Energy companies continue to build out methane gas export infrastructure as demand grows around the world. Just as we saw with gasoline, there is no longer a reason to expect methane gas prices to return to recent low levels in the future.
Higher and more volatile electricity rates for NES customers are the future, if TVA continues down its current path of increasing electricity generation using methane gas. TVA is planning to replace its aging and expensive Cumberland and Kingston coal plants with costly methane gas combined cycle plants.
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Further inflating the cost of these plants is the construction of approximately 150 miles of new methane gas pipelines. Beyond supplying methane gas to these specific plants, the pipelines will enable more capacity for export.
The result is higher methane gas prices and higher electricity costs for NES customers well into the future.
However, there is an alternate future. In June, Synapse Energy Economics, Inc. released an analysis concluding that replacing the Cumberland and Kingston fossil plants with a combination of solar, storage and energy efficiency would be less expensive than methane gas with no loss in grid reliability.
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With no fuel charges for solar, storage or energy efficiency, the investments in these energy sources would bring the rate stability Nashvillians are missing. The future only looks brighter for solar and storage as their deployment costs continue to decline through technological innovations and economies of scale.
We are not yet locked into a bleak future of high electricity rates reliant on dirty and volatile fossil fuels. For the economic benefit of the NES service area and the Tennessee Valley as a whole, TVA should replace the Cumberland and Kingston coal plants with a combination of solar, storage and energy efficiency.
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Investing in gas burdens NES’s commercial and residential customers with high electricity costs far into the future. Choosing solar is the responsible and affordable way forward for Nashville.
Natalie Dowd is a Nashville resident, small business owner and seasoned community volunteer.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: TVA's future should rely on renewable energy, not natural gas
