Future Grid Performance

A variety of factors are impacting and influencing the energy sector: rapid technology advancement, regulatory changes, electrification and more.

TVA aspires to support broad national efforts to create a reliable energy economy. This will require partnership, innovation and continued investment in new technologies. TVA is investing in a diverse suite of options to meet energy demand — including solar and energy storage — while also exploring emerging technologies like advanced nuclear reactors and alternative fuels.

The addition of more renewable energy resources, such as wind, solar and energy storage, will present challenges to the way we plan and operate the grid. That’s because renewable energy is weather-dependent (variable energy resources) and uses inverters to produce energy and interact with the grid (inverter-based resources). These characteristics are different from traditional power plants, like coal, which have fuel delivered on-site and use rotating machines to produce energy.