2023-02679: Moore County Solar Environmental Impact Statement

Summary

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has decided to adopt the preferred alternative identified in its final environmental impact statement (Final EIS) for the Moore County Solar Project. The Final EIS was made available to the public on December 9, 2022. A Notice of Availability (NOA) of the Final EIS was published in the Federal Register on December 16, 2022. TVA's preferred alternative, analyzed in the Final EIS as the Proposed Action Alternative, consists of TVA executing a power purchase agreement (PPA) with SR Tullahoma, LLC (SR Tullahoma), a wholly owned subsidiary of Silicon Ranch Corporation (SRC), to purchase power generated by the proposed 200-megawatt (MW) alternating current (AC) solar photovoltaic (PV) facility, which would occupy approximately 1,873 acres of a 3,463-acre Project Site, two miles west of the city of Tullahoma, within the metropolitan limits of Lynchburg in Moore County, Tennessee. The Project would connect to TVA's existing adjacent Franklin-Wartrace No. 2 161-kilovolt (kV) transmission line (TL) that extends north-south through the Project Site. To interconnect to TVA's existing electrical grid, SR Tullahoma and TVA would build an on-site 161-kV substation and switchyard, respectively, and TVA would replace the existing overhead ground wire with new fiber-optic overhead ground wire along an approximately 9.8- mile portion of the TL. This alternative would achieve the purpose and need of the Project to meet the demand for increased renewable energy generation established in TVA's 2019 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP).

The agency’s own summary, as published.