Resilience 360° Program Programmatic Environmental Assessment

TVA Power Service Area

On August 7, 2025, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) issued the Final Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) and Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) for the Resilience 360° Program.

TVA is proposing a “Commercial Resiliency” program, titled Resilience 360°, to partner with vendors and TVA customers to improve and enhance resiliency during events that challenge the transmission of power on the grid [e.g., extreme weather, and minor incidences of cyber-attack or domestic terrorism (vandalism of one or a few substations or switchyards)] and to periodically support demand on the TVA system. TVA would partner with multiple vendors through a qualified resiliency network to provide backup generation in the form of on-site modular natural gas units or battery energy storage systems (BESS) to improve commercial resiliency for qualified customers. Additionally, TVA would enter into a single Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with a vendor to have control or dispatch rights to the units when not in use for a qualifying resiliency event. Each host site would contain natural gas units or BESS that would generate about 100 kilowatts (kW) up to 25 megawatts (MW) of power. This PEA establishes general siting and environmental criteria to ensure that installations do not cause greater impacts than those addressed in this PEA.

To ensure that each action falling under the PPA with the vendors would be adequately covered by the analysis in the PEA, TVA would establish an administrative approval process that considers the siting of each natural gas unit or BESS. TVA has prepared an Environmental Screening Checklist (Appendix A) to gather information about each proposed site during the approval process. By completing a similar Checklist for each location/host, TVA specialists can verify whether the siting decision is adequately covered by the PEA or if additional environmental review under NEPA is required.

The Draft PEA was released for public comment on March 18, 2025. The Draft PEA was posted to TVA’s website and a media advisory was issued on March 18, 2025. TVA also notified interested Federal, state, and local agencies of the availability of the Draft during the 30-day public review period. Comments on the Draft PEA were accepted for 30 days through April 17, 2025, via TVA’s website, e-mail, and mail. TVA reviewed all of the substantive comments received. Summarized comments and responses are included in the Public Comments and Responses Appendix (Appendix E) of the Final PEA.

TVA has prepared this Draft PEA pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to evaluate the project alternatives, preferred alternative, and analyze the potential impacts on the environment associated with the establishment of the Resilience 360° Program and construction, operation, and decommissioning of the Resilience 360° units.