The Tennessee Valley Authority has reversed course on its plan to close all coal plants by 2035, deciding instead to keep the Cumberland City coal plant in Stewart County open indefinitely. NewsChannel 5 has reported extensively on the prospects of the plant closing. The fossil plant in Kingston will also remain open. The decision comes as artificial intelligence data centers drive unprecedented demand for electricity across the Tennessee Valley.
TVA’s board of directors approved the resolution Wednesday with a simple voice vote, citing the explosive growth in data center demand as a primary factor. “Data Center demand climbed to 18 percent of our industrial load in 2025 and we’re projecting data center demand to double in our region by 2030,” TVA CEO Dan Moul said.
To put that growth in perspective, TVA said the current data centers in the Tennessee Valley, plus requests for new ones, would be equivalent to powering 6 million homes…