As the Tennessee Valley Authority was preparing secret plans to relocate its power operations center out of downtown Chattanooga over the past couple of years, the federal utility gave the $300 million project the code name “Project Viper.”
Greg Vital, a Chattanooga developer who owns several hundred acres around the proposed site for the complex in southern Meigs County, thinks the name is an apt description of how TVA has “slithered into the community” and some fear may take a bite of its rural character and look.
“The name shocked me because there is no question that they chose a name that reflects their behavior in handling this project,” Vital said. “They have been secretive and sliding into the unknown like a Viper and there still hasn’t been any public discussion about this project and why it is needed here.”
In August, TVA conducted an open house near the 167-acre site TVA bought for the new load control facility, which TVA wants to have in operation within five years for its “Grid 2023” program. The 185,000-square-foot structure will house about 200 employees and be the “brains” of TVA power grid controls.
TVA’s power control center is now located in the basement of the Missionary Ridge building in TVA’s Chattanooga Office Complex downtown. But Aaron Melda, vice president of transmission operations and power supply for TVA, said in an interview in August with the Times Free Press that the new facility is needed for better security and to support a new energy management system TVA is installing that will also involve a $300 million upgrade of its fiber optic lines along many of TVA’s transmission lines.