The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has decided to retire the last units at two of its coal-fired power plants due to economic reasons. The company estimates that the coal-fired power units have become too expensive to operate and predicts that closing them would save customers an estimated US$320m. This decision is also in line with TVA's strategy to shut down ageing coal-fired power plants in favor of cheaper and cleaner energy sources such as natural gas or renewable energy sources.
The two concerned power units are the 1,150 MW Paradise-3 unit in Kentucky and the 881 MW Bull Run coal plant in Tennessee. The Paradise power plant initially included three units and their associated large natural-draft cooling towers. The first two came online in 1963, each with a generation capacity of 704 MW, and were retired in 2017. The third unit (i.e. Paradise-3) started commercial operations in 1970 and it will stop by December 2020. Bull Run is a single-generator power plant and went into operation in 1967; it will stop operations by December 2023.
Coal power plants used to form the backbone of TVA's operational power generation capacity. Apart from the Bull Run and Paradise assets, the company also owns and operates the Cumberland, Gallatin, Kingston and Shawnee power plants (over 7.1 GW of power generation capacity).