Tennessee Valley Authority OKs new roadmap for coming decades

The Tennessee Valley Authority made waves at its Aug. 20 Board of Directors meeting, held in Memphis. In the midst of ongoing discussions on data center development in and around the city, the power supply authority voted to implement a new rate class and additional charges for data centers, aiming

What is the story about?

The Tennessee Valley Authority made waves at its Aug. 20 Board of Directors meeting, held in Memphis.

In the midst of ongoing discussions on data center development in and around the city, the power supply authority voted to implement a new rate class and additional charges for data centers, aiming to shield normal ratepayers from higher utility costs. Memphis Light, Gas and Water is TVA's biggest customer. The board also entered a new service agreement with Elon Musk's SpaceXAI.

TVA also approved a new roadmap that will guide the company through the next few decades. The approved Integrated Resource Plan accounts for an expected increase in electricity demand in the coming

years, partially because of data center development.

The plan also outlines TVA's energy sources and calls for adding more nuclear power sources in the years ahead.

"TVA will now have the tools it needs from the IRP to plan for the long-term strength and reliability of our power system while keeping rates as low as feasible," said Wade White, a member of the board of directors, at the meeting.

Jerri Green pushes forward on medical debt initiative

At its Aug. 18 meeting, the Memphis City Council passed a resolution, sponsored by Councilwoman Jerri Green, to use community grant funds to support medical debt relief. The initiative partners with Undue Medical Debt, a nonprofit organization that works to erase medical bills.

Undue Medical Debt purchases medical debt in bundled portfolios from providers and collection agencies "millions of dollars at a time for a fraction of the face value," according to its website. Each funding contribution to the organization can relieve about 100 times its value in medical debt, the organization said.

The council approved investing just shy of $160,000 of grant money, and through working with the nonprofit, Green said it will eliminate the medical debt of over 12,000 qualifying Memphians. This amounts to more than $17 million of owed bills.

Green, who is the Democratic nominee for Tennessee governor, has made erasing medical debt a focus of her statewide campaign.

She has called for using $10 million in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funds to buy and erase medical debt for people with low incomes across Tennessee.

Jerri Green, the Tennessee Democratic gubernatorial candidate, speaks to the media after the election was called in her favor at her election night watch party at the Halloran Centre in Memphis, Tenn., on Aug. 6, 2026.

"Use resources that are already available to help Tennessee families that are struggling, leverage those dollars through organizations that can purchase qualifying debt at a fraction of its face value and eliminate the debt rather than forcing families to spend years trying to pay it off," Green wrote in a guest column in The Commercial Appeal.

This week and next

The Shelby County Commission will meet at 3 p.m. on Aug. 24 at Vasco A. Smith, Jr. County Administration Building, 160 N. Main St. The meeting will also be streamed on the commission's YouTube channel.

The Memphis City Council will next meet Sept. 1 at City Hall, 125 N. Main St. Meeting agendas for the council's committee and regular meetings will be posted on the city's website.