Catching up with TVA Board member Randy Jones
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Photo collage: Derek Lacey/Axios. Photos courtesy of TVA, Jim West/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Randy Jones took his seat on the Tennessee Valley Authority's Board of Directors earlier this year after a nomination from President Trump and a Senate confirmation.
Why it matters: As the Tennessee Valley grows and major industrial projects, including potential data centers, come online, TVA faces mounting pressure to meet demand while keeping electricity affordable.
Zoom in: Jones sat down with Axios last week at his Guntersville office to discuss the issues he believes will define the Valley's next phase of growth.
📈 Facilitating growth
TVA is meeting current demand, Jones said, with natural gas filling a critical role, "but at the long term, it's nuclear."
- Jones noted major recent economic development announcements in the Valley, headlined by Eli Lilly's $6-billion plant, Google's $1.5 billion data center expansion, the Navy and Hadrian's $2.4 billion, and JST's $500-million facility.
- "It's all being driven by power that TVA is providing," he said.
⚡️ Navigating the data center boom
With angst over data center construction growing, Jones says the focus is on requiring data centers to secure their own power and ensuring they don't drive up rates.
- TVA is having to look at rates from existing data centers and "there's going to be a whole new rate structure" for new ones.
- "We can't put it on the back of the grandmother in Asbury, Alabama, who's trying to raise two grandkids," Jones said. "A 10% power rate [increase] for her [is the] difference between maybe having lunch one day, having dinner one day."
"They're going to come in and give us their plan of action: How they're going to get the power, how they're going to pay for it and put it on our transmission lines to make it work," he said.
- Any industry hoping to locate in the Valley that's requesting loads over 100MW requires board approval, noted TVA spokesperson Clarissa McClain.
🔥 The natural gas present
As Huntsville, Athens and Scottsboro continue pushing for a new regional natural gas pipeline via the North Alabama Public Energy District, Jones says that gas is key to meeting rising demand quickly.
- "Right now, that's where the quick fix on this is ... as far as the next 10 years," he said, as natural gas plants can be constructed in two and a half years.
💭 A vision for Bellefonte
Plans have also emerged for potential Small Modular Reactors at TVA's unfinished Bellefonte nuclear plant.
- TVA has yet to make an official decision and is preserving the facility for potential future generation, per McClain, but Jones said his vision is "for it to become a world center of energy."
- "I'd love to see gas over there, love to see nuclear over there ... and literally make it a model for the entire world to come see 'This is how you can do energy.'"
👀 The board's focus
The TVA Board is focused on its 10 million customers, Jones said, and working with local power companies to make TVA easier to work with and more user-friendly.
- A regulatory review is underway, a stakeholders group is now meeting, he said, and TVA is streamlining its section 26a applications for construction work that would impact navigation, flood control or public lands.