The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has approved plans to build a natural gas pipeline to supply a power plant the Tennessee Valley Authority plans to build near Clarksville, Tennessee, at the site of TVA’s biggest coal plant.
Despite opposition from environmental groups, the commission authorized the Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. LLC to build a 32-mile-long gas pipeline in Middle Tennessee sought by TVA to power a new combined cycle natural gas plant to replace a portion of the 2,470 megawatts of coal-fired generation planned to be idled within the next five years at the Cumberland Fossil Plant near Clarksville.
By a 2-1 vote, the regulatory agency approved the proposed pipeline after TVA said earlier this month that without immediate approval of the gas line, the shutdown of the coal-fired plants at Cumberland would have to be delayed.
“The approval of the Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co.’s proposed pipeline will help TVA bring cleaner, more reliable generation online,” TVA spokesperson Scott Brooks said Tuesday. “This will provide the TVA system with the flexibility to integrate renewables and distributed resources, increase reliability and resiliency, and meet power demand in the region.”
Although the new gas generator will produce less carbon pollution than the coal plant it will help replace, environmental groups still object to building any new fossil fuel generation that will continue to produce carbon emissions linked with global warming. Critics of TVA said adding more natural gas plants undermines President Joe Biden’s pledge to decarbonize the electric utility industry by 2035 and will require building potentially dangerous gas pipelines in communities that don’t want such infrastructure.