Published

3 years ago

February 13, 2024

Alice Rush

TVA is using NEPA as a stand-in for genuine public and stakeholder processes to inform its latest long-term resource plan. But NEPA was not intended to be used that way, and it falls far short of what is needed for the public to be able to interact with and inform key decisions that will impact all of our daily lives for decades to come. Because it relies on NEPA for public input, TVA’s IRP process lacks transparency and accessibility.

TVA’s IRP: Once Every 5 Years

The Tennessee Valley Authority is currently working on its first long-term Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) in five years. This IRP will drive near-term resource decisions and stand up long-term programs and projects that will determine how electricity needs across the Valley are met next year through 2050. Since TVA will likely not revisit these issues for another five years, this particular plan is of the utmost importance to accelerating clean energy to lower energy costs and improve reliability and resilience. Thus, when the TVA Board denied our request that they hold a public hearing on this IRP, we joined with other advocates to host our own.

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) & TVA

NEPA dates back to 1970. It was set up to require all federal agencies to evaluate the potential environmental impacts of their actions and decisions. Since TVA is a federal agency, it is required to go through a NEPA process for many decisions, from changing its rate structure to building a new power plant. A separate statute, the TVA Act, requires TVA to do long-term planning, and includes requirements about resources to consider and how TVA’s utility customers are involved.

NEPA was set up for agencies to conduct Environmental Impact Statements (EIS), not IRPs.

When we joined with other advocates in calling on TVA to have a hearing on its current IRP, TVA responded by listing its NEPA public steps and an invite-only working group. While TVA’s IRP is not exempt from NEPA review, TVA can and should have a separate public, accessible, and transparent process for its IRPs.

One day of the expert hearing on Duke Energy’s IRP by the North Carolina Utilities Commission in September 2022.

Here are just a few ways that NEPA differs from a typical regulatory IRP process.

NEPA does not allow discovery questions of the utility. In a regulatory IRP, stakeholders can ask questions and request documents.
Adherence to NEPA is overseen by the EPA and CEQ, neither of which have experience overseeing a utility IRP process. TVA is the only federal utility that does its own IRP. TVA’s closest relative, the Bonneville Power Authority (BPA), has its long-term planning performed by an independent entity.
When a member of the public or an organization submits comments through the NEPA process they only go to TVA’s staff. In a regulatory IRP process, the independent regulators hear directly from the public and stakeholders through written comments, public hearings, and litigated hearings.
NEPA focuses on the environmental impacts (and a few select societal impacts) of a specific decision. An IRP typically isn’t prescriptive, and TVA’s IRPs tend to be very general, so the environmental impacts from a draft TVA IRP are usually fairly meaningless. A regulatory IRP process looks at impacts on costs, reliability, the economy, and the environment. The issues a Commission considers when reviewing an IRP are typically set out in a state’s IRP statute.
Under NEPA, federal agency staff (i.e. TVA staff) determine whether and how to incorporate feedback from the public. In a regulatory IRP process, the independent regulators decide what parts of an IRP to approve, deny, or change.

Regardless of the differences, it remains true that NEPA was not intended to provide the sole public input for a utility IRP. An IRP is a complex process that should consider more than environmental impacts, and requires careful and independent oversight.

SACE has repeatedly called on the TVA Board to make the IRP process more accessible and transparent. When TVA’s Board of Directors refused to hold a public hearing on TVA’s 2024 draft IRP, we joined with allies to hold our own. The outcome of that hearing was clear: TVA’s IRP process is not normal, and not in a good way. The lack of transparency and accountability is likely to lead to further investments in new fossil fuel infrastructure, which will expose people in the Tennessee Valley to the risks associated with higher bills and more power outages in the future. Now we are calling out TVA for using NEPA as its primary public engagement tool for this long-term planning process that will impact the day-to-day lives of residents across the Valley for decades to come.

It is time that TVA put in place a public IRP process, separate and above its requirements under NEPA.

The post TVA: NEPA is not a stand-in for public input in an IRP appeared first on SACE | Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

TVA: NEPA is not a stand-in for public input in an IRP

Renewable Energy

Nordex Outsells Vestas, GE Vernova Rebuilds Wind Team

Published

11 hours ago

September 8, 2026

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Nordex Outsells Vestas, GE Vernova Rebuilds Wind Team

Nordex closes in on Vestas in onshore orders, GE Vernova rebuilds its wind team, Nexxis buys BladeBug, and wooden blades draw doubts.

The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast is brought to you by Weather Guard Lightning Tech, creators of the StrikeTape Ultra LPS retrofit. Subscribe to Uptime’s Substack newsletter. And check out Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” Youtube channel. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!

Nordex Outsells Vestas, GE Vernova Rebuilds Wind Team

Renewable Energy

Siemens Gamesa Builds Hornsea Blades, NEMS Invests in Perth

Published

1 day ago

September 7, 2026

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Siemens Gamesa Builds Hornsea Blades, NEMS Invests in Perth

Siemens Gamesa starts Hornsea 3 blade production in Hull, Germany approves an Offshore Wind Act amendment, and Nexxis buys BladeBUG.

Episode Transcript

Uptime News Flash
September 7, 2026
Happy Monday, everyone. Well, let’s talk about the biggest wind farm on earth. It doesn’t exist yet, but its blades are being built right now. Over in Hull, England, Siemens Gamesa just started making blades for Ørsted’s Hornsea 3 offshore wind farm. That’s two point nine gigawatts, one hundred and ninety-seven turbines. Each blade is longer than a football pitch. Fourteen hundred workers build blades in that factory, turning raw materials into finished product. When complete, Hornsea 3 will power more than three million British homes. It’s the single largest offshore wind farm in the world.
And if we slide over to Germany for a moment, the German cabinet just approved an amendment to the Offshore Wind Act, the WindSeeG. It’s headed to the Bundestag next. The goal? New rules by January first, twenty twenty-seven. But the Offshore Wind Energy Foundation says the draft does not go far enough. Sixteen gigawatts of awarded projects are still waiting on final investment decisions. Sixteen — that’s quite a few. The foundation wants a new way for developers to hand back sites they can’t build, so those sites can be re-tendered quickly under conditions that actually work. Sort of a use-it-or-lose-it approach. That’s the idea.
We’ll head a little further east to India. India ranks fourth in the world for installed wind power, but probably not for long. A government official said this week that India will overtake Germany and become the world’s third-largest wind energy nation by twenty thirty — one hundred seven gigawatts of installed capacity. India added a record six gigawatts last year alone, shattering their previous record of a little over four gigawatts. And twenty-eight more gigawatts are under construction right now. Impressive.
Let’s head down to Western Australia, because a company called National Electric Motor Services, NEMS for short, is building a one million dollar facility in Perth to test and repair wind turbine generators. Right now, Australian wind farm operators ship their broken generators overseas for repairs, and that takes months. NEMS is the only authorized service center for ELIN Motoren in all of Western Australia. This is the fifth project funded through Australia’s Wind Energy Manufacturing Co-investment program. Local repair, faster turnaround, and homegrown capability — that’s all good.
And staying in Australia, Perth-based Nexxis Technology just bought a British robotics company, BladeBUG. BladeBUG is a robot that uses suction cups to crawl across wind turbine blades. Nexxis already has a robot called Magneto that uses electromagnetic adhesion to climb steel structures. If you put the two together, you can inspect almost any surface on a turbine, or about anything else. Add AI and machine vision, and you have robots that can see what human eyes might miss, from places human hands shouldn’t have to reach. It’s safer, faster, and it’s going to be a lot smarter.
One more story before we finish today. Siemens Gamesa has now installed more than 300 recyclable blades in six countries. The secret is a new resin. Unlike conventional resins, this one lets you separate the blade components at end of life, so you can separate the fabric from the resin. Cool stuff. Jonas Pagh Jensen, head of sustainability at Siemens Gamesa, says the technology is ready for full-scale use. And Siemens Gamesa has already installed 36 GreenerTower units — steel towers with 63% lower carbon emissions. So although sustainability may have faded from the headlines, it’s still in tender documents, and it’s showing up more than ever. In Denmark, the Netherlands, and France, buyers are all asking about recyclability and decarbonization before they award contracts.
So what should you be watching this week? Recyclability is no longer a nice-to-have — it’s a must-have, and it’s showing up in tender scoring. If your blades can’t be recycled at end of life, you may not win the contract to begin with. And a lot of supply chains are going local. Australia doesn’t want to ship generators overseas anymore. India is building its own turbine factories. The countries buying wind power want it built at home. For professionals in the wind industry, the competitive edge is shifting — it’s not just who can build the best turbine, it’s who can build it locally, recycle it fully, and inspect it without putting a person in a harness.

Siemens Gamesa Builds Hornsea Blades, NEMS Invests in Perth

Renewable Energy

Climate “Superfund” Will Require Legislation at the Federal Level

Published

2 days ago

September 6, 2026

Alice Rush

A judge has ruled that New York State’s climate “superfund,” modeled after laws that provide money to clean up toxic waste, runs counter to federal law and is therefore invalid.

Eventually, we will have laws that force companies whose actions are ruining the planet to pay for the remediation that must happen to avert environmental collapse. In the meanwhile, we need to expect the fossil fuel industry to continue its ruthless legal attack such legislation.