While county, local and Tennessee Valley Authority officials ceremonially “broke ground” Wednesday morning at the site of the New Caledonia Combustion Turbine Plant, the sounds of thrashing bulldozers and ongoing construction showcased the site is already well underway.
Don Moul, president and CEO for TVA, spoke to a crowd of more than 40 local officials and other TVA leadership just outside the 145-acre construction site at the event about the plant’s potential for both the area and the greater TVA network.
“It’s about generating reliable, affordable power,” Moul said. “… Modern natural gas plants like New Caledonia are vital to our system because they provide the flexibility to meet peak demand and complement our other diverse generating resources.”
The six-turbine site, which represents a nearly $800 million investment, is projected to add about 500 megawatts to the grid, enough to power about 250,000 homes both in the surrounding area and across TVA’s system, Moul said.
Combustion turbines are designed to meet peaks in power demand quickly by compressing air, mixing it with fuel and igniting it which turns turbine blades at the facility and generates electricity, the TVA’s website said.
The project has a completion date of May 2028, and Moul said crews are currently on pace to meet that deadline.
Over roughly the next 20 months, crews will construct the physical facility adding in dirt, concrete, gravel and steel before adding in the wiring and piping to largely complete the internal energy generation components of the facility, said Roger Waldrep, vice president for major projects at TVA.
Once completed, Waldrep said the 500 megawatts of energy produced can get sent wherever it’s most needed across the TVA network.
“It goes to wherever in the valley the demand is,” Waldrep said.
The site where the new plant is being constructed previously housed an Enron-owned gas powered plant. Enron’s scandal led to the company filing for bankruptcy in 2001, the plant was disassembled in 2007.
The already established infrastructure from the previously plant made the area a prime space to build the new facility, Moul said.
“We have gas here. We have a transmission switch yard here so we can get it onto the transmission system,” Moul told The Dispatch. We really needed to move fast to get more capacity on the system because of the load growth we’re seeing, and that’s a good problem to have because it means economic development and jobs in the area.”
TVA Senior Strategic Communicator Julia Wise said once the site is fully up and running the plant will employ about 10 full-time workers, though she could not provide a range of salaries employees can expect.
Mayor Betty Darnell said while the plant is technically outside Caledonia town limits, she still is excited about the prospect of the site coming online and the opportunities its development will have in the Caledonia area.
“It’s really important,” Darnell said. “… So they’re really putting a lot into it to push it through. And that is very important. … And our area is a growing area with industry and housing, so we need it for everything.”
Lowndes County Board of Supervisors President Trip Hairston said that the site represents another great investment by TVA in the county, and is something that will only help as the county continues to expand with other sites like Kloeckner Metals facility.
“It’s very exciting and what’s even more exciting is they’ve already broken ground, and we see construction happening in full force,” Hairston said. “There’s a lot of people out here right now moving dirt. … It’s good to see that things are moving forward. We can talk about things and talk about things. But when you have a ground break and you actually see bulldozers in the background, that’s a really awesome sight.”
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