The U.S. Department of Energy said Sept. 24 it will help the Tennessee Valley Authority fund a $159.7 million effort to upgrade power lines in the South.
The announcement comes amid rapid data center growth and a federal push for U.S. AI dominance, increasing pressure for utility and transmission upgrades nationwide.
TVA, the nation’s largest public power provider, will share the cost of the upgrades, according to a press release from the energy department.
The seven-state utility requested $79.8 million from the energy department in its funding application. The project will help TVA increase the amount of electricity it can move across its transmission system by upgrading existing power lines and related technology.
The utility, TVA spokesperson
Melissa Greene said, will put the money toward one transmission project that stretches across the Tennessee Valley region, along with five East Tennessee transmission line projects and one in Alabama.
In its application, TVA named the project "Rebuilding the Transmission Backbone for Energy and AI Dominance," echoing language that often emanates from a Trump administration stressing the value of American energy dominance.
TVA's project is one of 31 grid upgrades selected for federal funding. The energy department will provide $1.9 billion for the projects, while recipients are expected to contribute another $3.35 billion.
The projects aim to revamp or rebuild more than 1,500 miles of transmission lines and use new grid technologies to get real-time reads of line capacity, send additional power to lines with capacity to handle it and add new analytical tools to help operators react to changing conditions on the grid.
The projects should free up over 23 gigawatts of electricity capacity, according to the energy department, which has estimated the U.S. will need to expand its transmission systems by 60% by 2030.
TVA owns 16,400 miles of transmission lines and more than 100,000 transmission structures. The utility has 41 transmission system projects underway, as of Sept. 24.
Building new lines is often a lengthy process. A Congressional Research Service analyst in a 2022 report said it can take about a decade on average for permitting, financing and finishing new lines. A 2024 study from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory said clean energy projects often spent about five years in the approval process amid studies on transmission tech.
TVA is a federal organization and is funded by ratepayers, who ultimately provide the bulk of the money for the utility's share of the project cost. The utility does not receive appropriations from Congress.
Mariah Franklin reports on technology and energy for Knox News. Email: mariah.franklin@knoxnews.com. Signal: mariahfranklin.01
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: TVA gets federal boost to upgrade its power lines across the South
