TVA releases 20-year strategic plan

NORTH MISSISSIPPI — The Tennessee Valley Authority has filed its integrated resource plan with the Environmental Protection Agency to outline the federal utility’s strategic direction for providing electricity over the next two decades, TVA announced Friday. The filing also includes an environmental impact statement.

The utility said the plan, titled “TVA’s Environmental and Energy Future,” will help TVA continue to meet regional energy demands in a sustainable manner.

The strategic direction outlined in the plan, which will be formally presented to the TVA board of directors in April, recommends a broader diversity of power-generation sources, including greater use of nuclear power, natural gas and renewable sources and less reliance on coal, to help lower emissions and control costs.

TVA said the plan places greater emphasis than in the past on lowering carbon emissions and on increasing energy efficiency, which helps control future costs by reducing the need to build new power plants.