[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 206 (Monday, October 26, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 65282-65284]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2015-27129]
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TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY
Integrated Resource Plan
AGENCY: Tennessee Valley Authority.
ACTION: Issuance of record of decision.
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SUMMARY: This notice is provided in accordance with the Council on
Environmental Quality's regulations (40 CFR 1500 to 1508) and TVA's
procedures for implementing the National Environmental Policy Act
(NEPA). TVA has decided to adopt the preferred alternative in its final
supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) for the Integrated
Resource Plan (IRP). The notice of availability (NOA) of the Final
Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the Integrated Resource
Plan was published in the Federal Register on July 17, 2015. The TVA
Board of Directors approved the IRP and authorized staff to implement
the preferred alternative at its August 21, 2015 meeting. This
alternative, the Target Power Supply Mix, will guide TVA's selection of
energy resource options to meet the energy needs of the Tennessee
Valley region over the next 20 years. The energy resource options
include new nuclear, natural gas-fired and renewable generation,
increased energy efficiency and demand reduction, and decreased coal-
fired generation.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Charles P. Nicholson, NEPA Compliance,
Tennessee Valley Authority, 400 West Summit Hill Drive, WT 11D,
Knoxville, Tennessee 37902-1499; telephone 865-632-3582 or email
[email protected].
Gary S. Brinkworth, IRP Project Manager, Tennessee Valley
Authority, 1101 Market Street, MR 3K-C, Chattanooga, Tennessee 3740s;
telephone 423-751-2193, or email [email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: TVA is an agency and instrumentality of the
United States, established by an act of Congress in 1933, to foster the
social and economic welfare of the people of the Tennessee Valley
region and to promote the proper use and conservation of the region's
natural resources. One component of this mission is the generation,
transmission, and sale of reliable and affordable electric energy. TVA
operates the largest public power system in the nation, providing
electricity to about 9 million people in an 80,000-square mile area
comprised of most of Tennessee and parts of Virginia, North Carolina,
Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky. It provides wholesale
power to 155 independent power distributors and 59 directly served
large industrial and federal customers. The TVA Act requires the TVA
power system to be self-supporting and operating on a nonprofit basis
and directs TVA to sell power at rates as low as are feasible.
Dependable generating capability on the TVA power system is about
37,200 megawatts (MW). TVA generates most of this power with 3 nuclear
plants, 10 coal-fired plants, 9 combustion-turbine plants, 6 combined
cycle plants, 29 hydroelectric plants, a pumped-storage facility, and
several small renewable facilities. These facilities generated 142.2
billion kilowatt-hours in fiscal year 2014. The major sources for this
power were coal (40 percent), nuclear (33 percent), natural gas (13
percent), and hydroelectric (10 percent). Other sources comprised less
than 1 percent of TVA generation. Total power delivered to customers in
fiscal year 2014 was 161 gigawatt-hours (GWh). A portion of this
delivered power was provided through long-term power purchase
agreements.
The recently completed IRP updates TVA's 2011 IRP. Consistent with
Section 113 of the Energy Policy Act of 1992, codified within the TVA
Act, TVA employed a least-cost system planning process in developing
the IRP. This process took into account the demand for electricity,
energy resource diversity, reliability, costs, risks, environmental
impacts, and the unique attributes of different energy resources.
Future Demand for Energy
TVA uses state-of-the-art energy forecasting models to predict
future demands on its system. Because of the uncertainty in predicting
future demands, TVA developed high, medium, and low forecasts for both
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peak load (in MW) and annual net system energy (in GWh) through 2033.
Peak load is predicted to grow at average annual rates of 1.1 percent
in the medium-growth Current Outlook Scenario, 0.3 percent in the low-
growth forecast, and 1.3 percent in the high-growth forecast. Net
system energy is predicted to grow at an average annual rate of 1.0
percent in the medium-growth forecast, remain flat in the low-growth
forecast, and grow at an average annual rate of 1.1 percent in the
high-growth forecast.
Based on these load growth forecasts, TVA's current firm capacity
(TVA generation, energy efficiency and demand response measures, and
power purchase agreements), and including a 15 percent planning reserve
margin, TVA would need additional energy resources in the future. The
medium-growth case needs are 2,500 MW of additional capacity and 14,000
GWh of additional energy by 2020, growing to 11,600 MW and 51,000 GWh
by 2033.
Alternatives Considered
Six alternative energy resource strategies were evaluated in the
Draft SEIS and IRP. These resource planning strategies were identified
as potential alternative means of serving future electrical energy
demands on the TVA system while meeting least-cost system planning
requirements. These alternative strategies are:
Baseline Case (No Action Alternative): The continued implementation
of the 2011 IRP as modified by subsequent decisions by the TVA Board of
Directors.
Strategy A--The Reference Plan: This strategy is similar to the
Baseline Case but treats energy efficiency and renewable energy
resources as selectable resources instead of defined inputs.
Strategy B--Meet an Emission Target: Resources are selected under
this strategy to create a lower emitting carbon dioxide
(CO2) profile by reducing system-wide direct emissions of
CO2 by 50 percent (to 557 lbs/megawatt-hour) by 2033 and by
80 percent by 2050 from 2005. The targeted CO2 rate is
measured at a system-wide level and thus differs from the state-by-
state and technology-specific baselines in the recently issued Clean
Power Plan.
Strategy C--Focus on Long-Term, Market-Supplied Resources: Under
this strategy, TVA would minimize capital investments in owned energy
resources by meeting most capacity needs through power purchase
agreements.
Strategy D--Maximize Energy Efficiency: Energy efficiency would be
given priority in meeting capacity needs with other resources selected
to serve the remaining need.
Strategy E--Maximize Renewables: Renewable energy resources
(hydroelectric, biomass, wind and solar) are emphasized by setting
near-term and long-term renewable energy targets.
The alternative strategies were analyzed in the context of five
scenarios or future ``worlds'' that were determined to be reasonably
possible to occur. The scenarios were TVA's current outlook, a stagnant
economy, a growth economy, a de-carbonized future, and a distributed
energy marketplace. Each scenario is a set of uncertainties relevant to
power system planning that include plausible future economic,
financial, regulatory and legislative conditions, as well as social
trends and adoption of technological innovations. Potential 20-year
capacity expansion plans or resource portfolios were developed for each
combination of alternative strategy and scenario using a capacity
planning model. The model built each portfolio from a range of
potential energy resource options that included TVA's existing energy
resources and new coal, nuclear, natural gas, hydroelectric, wind,
solar, and biomass generation, energy storage, and energy efficiency
and demand response resources. Each portfolio was optimized for the
lowest Present Value of Revenue Requirements while meeting energy
balance, reserve, operational, and other requirements. The portfolios
were then evaluated using an hourly production costing program to
determine detailed revenue requirements and near- and long-term system
average costs. Recognizing the uncertainty in long-range planning
studies, extensive stochastic analyses were also conducted to identify
risk exposure within each scenario. Additional metrics developed to
rank the portfolios included financial risk, CO2 emissions,
water consumption, coal waste generation and changes in regional
personal income. These metrics were used to compare the alternative
strategies and their associated portfolios.
Strategies A-C had similar scores for most metrics and the scores
for Strategies A and B were almost identical and for some metrics
slightly better than Strategy C. Strategy E, with the greatest emphasis
on renewable energy resources, scored the best on the three
environmental metrics of CO2 emissions, water consumption,
and coal waste production. Strategy D had somewhat greater
environmental impacts than Strategy E, and Strategies A-C had the
greatest and similar environmental impacts. To better inform the
development of the preferred alternative, TVA conducted additional
sensitivity analyses that varied key resource assumptions involving
nuclear additions, energy efficiency, renewable resources, fundamental
drivers such as load growth and fuel pricing, and the effect of forcing
the model to consider resource types and/or amounts that it otherwise
would not. The results of these analyses supported the energy resource
ranges identified in the initial portfolios.
TVA then developed a preferred alternative, the Target Power Supply
Mix, based on guideline ranges for key energy resources. In developing
it, TVA took into account its least-cost planning requirement and
customer priorities of power cost and reliability, as well as other
comments it received during the public comment on the Draft IRP and
SEIS. The Target Power Supply Mix establishes ranges, in MW, for coal
plant retirements and additions of nuclear, hydroelectric, demand
response, energy efficiency, solar, wind, and natural gas capacity. The
recommended ranges are based on Strategies A-C and the Current Outlook
Scenario, expressed over the 20-year planning period with more specific
direction over the first 10-year period. The Target Power Supply Mix
also includes broader ranges resulting from the sensitivity analyses.
Shifts in resource additions within the ranges would be based on
changes in the load forecast, the price of natural gas and other
commodities, the price and performance of energy efficiency and
renewable resources, and impacts from regulatory policy or breakthrough
technologies.
Public Involvement
TVA published a notice of intent to prepare the IRP SEIS in the
Federal Register on October 31, 2013. TVA then actively engaged the
public through public scoping and public briefings during the
development of the IRP and SEIS. TVA also established an IRP Working
Group to more actively engage stakeholders. Group members included
representatives of local power companies (distributors of TVA power),
state agencies, direct-served customers, academia, and energy and
environmental non-governmental organizations. Members of the group met
frequently with IRP staff to review and provide input during the
development of the plan.
The Notice of Availability of the Draft IRP and SEIS was published
in the Federal Register by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(USEPA) on March 13, 2015. TVA accepted comments on the draft plan and
SEIS until April 27, 2015. During
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the comment period, TVA held seven public meetings to describe the
project and accept comments. TVA received about 200 comments signed by
more than 2,400 individuals. After considering and responding to all
substantive comments, further evaluating the alternative strategies,
and developing the Target Power Supply Mix, TVA issued the Final IRP
and SEIS. The NOA for the Final IRP and SEIS was published in the
Federal Register on July 17, 2015.
Environmentally Preferred Alternative
All of the alternative strategies, as well as the Target Power
Supply Mix, have several common features that affect their anticipated
environmental impacts. The only new baseload generation added is the
extended power uprate of three nuclear units, a component of all
alternative strategies. All result in decreases in coal-fired
generation and increases in the reliance on energy efficiency and
renewable resources. All also add varying amounts of new natural gas-
fueled generation to meet peak loads. Emissions of air pollutants and
CO2, and generation of coal waste would decrease
significantly under all alternative strategies, including the Target
Power Supply Mix. Water-related impacts would also decrease, although
by smaller proportions. The major differences in the alternative
strategies that affect their environmental impacts are in the expansion
of energy efficiency and natural gas and renewable resources.
Strategies A-C and the Target Power Supply Mix have similar
environmental impacts and their impacts to most environmental resources
are greater than those of Strategies D and E. Because of its greater
reliance on generation by fossil fuels, Strategy D has somewhat greater
impacts to most environmental resources than Strategy E. Strategy E has
the greatest reliance on renewable energy resources, which,
particularly for utility-scale solar generation, have large land
requirements. Strategy E would therefore directly affect the largest
land area, almost twice that of the other alternative strategies and
the Target Power Supply Mix. Relative to other types of generation,
impacts of solar facilities on land resources are low. Overall,
Strategy E is considered the environmentally preferred alternative.
Decision
On August 21, 2015, the TVA Board of Directors approved the
preferred alternative, the Target Power Supply Mix. The Board also
directed staff to monitor future developments to help determine when
deviations from the recommended resource ranges should be made and to
initiate an update to the IRP no later than 2020 and earlier if future
developments make this appropriate.
Mitigation Measures
The reduction of environmental impacts was an important goal in
TVA's integrated resource planning process and all of the alternatives
assessed by TVA do that. Because this is a programmatic review,
measures to reduce potential environmental impacts on a site-specific
level were not identified. As TVA deploys specific energy resources, it
will review and take measures to reduce their potential environmental
impacts as appropriate. TVA's siting process for generation and
transmission facilities, as well as processes for modifying these
facilities, are designed to avoid and/or minimize potential adverse
environmental impacts. Potential impacts will also be reduced through
pollution prevention measures and environmental controls such as air
pollution control systems, wastewater treatment systems, and thermal
generating plant cooling systems. Other potentially adverse unavoidable
impacts will be mitigated by measures such as compensatory wetlands
mitigation, payments to in-lieu stream mitigation programs and related
conservation initiatives, enhanced management of other properties,
documentation and recovery of cultural resources, and infrastructure
improvement assistance to local communities.
Dated: October 16, 2015.
Van M. Wardlaw,
Executive Vice President and Chief External Relations Officer.
[FR Doc. 2015-27129 Filed 10-23-15; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 8120-08-P