Advancing nuclear amid a ‘historic’ gas build
The Tennessee Valley Authority saw its operating revenue for fiscal year 2025 increase by more than a billion dollars over the previous year, and plans to make significant investments in nuclear and transmission, said TVA’s CEO Don Moul during a Thursday investor call.
TVA is “undertaking one of the largest new asset campaigns in our history,” with 3.7 GW of new generation currently under construction, Moul said.
TVA’s CFO Tom Rice said the utility is “in the middle of a historic gas build right now” as it constructs 1.4 GW of natural gas at its Cumberland Fossil Plant and another 1.4 GW at its Kingston Fossil Plant.
The utility is planning to build up to four small modular reactors at its Clinch River Nuclear Site after TVA’s board of directors authorized up to $350 million in expenses, and in February entered into an agreement with Type One Energy to develop a plan for a TVA fusion power plant project.
Type One is co-located for a stellarator demonstration at TVA’s Bull Run facility, Moul said, and TVA’s Power Service Shops team is assisting with the fabrication and construction of that stellarator.
“We'll be working with them to share our operating experience on how to make it more cost effective and commercially viable, and then we'll evaluate the performance and decide what the next steps are,” Moul said.
TVA also announced during a board meeting last week that it’s targeting up to 1.5 GW of battery storage by the end of 2029.
The utility’s nuclear generation was down in fiscal year 2025 due to outages, but TVA “used that time strategically to advance nuclear life extension work,” Rice said.
However, “that nuclear generation was replaced by natural gas, coal and purchase power resources, which drove the fuel expense higher year over year,” he said.
Though TVA is bullish on advanced nuclear, the utility is structuring its deals in that space “to make sure that that risk isn't on our balance sheet,” Moul said. TVA is “watching” movers like Kairos Energy as it builds the Hermes 2 advanced nuclear pilot in partnership with Google, and looking to advance nuclear but “not put the risk on our ratepayers,” he said.
The utility’s ongoing commitment to building gas generation, including 1.4 GW each at its Cumberland and Kingston sites, means “those cash flows are really hitting last year, this year and next year,” Rice said. “We still have a significant gas build really through the end of the decade, but those tend to be more peaking resources and so [require] a little less capital.”
