‘We’re keeping the lights on’: TVA workers push toward Cumberland City gas plant deadline

Nearly two years after work began, the Tennessee Valley Authority offered a closer look July 16 at progress on its $2.1 billion state-of-the-art natural gas plant in Cumberland City.

Whether it’s 2 a.m. or 2 p.m., crews at the Cumberland Natural Gas Plant are hard at work.

With construction running around the clock, progress is moving quickly toward the plant’s December 2026 completion deadline.

Once powered up, the new 1,450-megawatt plant will help ensure the region has electricity needed to continue growing, or enough to power over 840,000 homes.

While the project has moved steadily, it hit a temporary road block, or as project manager Sam Vinson calls it, “an opportunity,” when conservationists sued to block the construction of the natural gas pipeline.

Conservationists have been voicing their opposition to the 32-mile pipeline that will stretch through Middle Tennessee since it was announced.

In October 2024, a federal court blocked the construction of the pipeline.

But a final order April 4 by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the pause in construction, allowing plans for the pipeline to move forward.

“It’s like a car engine,” Vinson said. “You can build the car, but you can’t really do anything without the engine.”

After the six month pause, and no “car engine,” Vinson and the rest of the team are now moving the project forward in full force.

Ahead of schedule

Even with the unforeseen delays, the plant is ahead of its December 2026 deadline and could reach completion in September 2026.

“It’s like running a marathon and at the halfway mark,” Vinson said. “Just because we’re ahead now, doesn’t mean we’ll win, but we are ahead of schedule.”

TVA construction manager and lifelong Cumberland City resident, Curtis Rodenhaber, described the community benefits of the plant as “tentacles” of growth that bring life to the city.

Before construction began, a small gas station near the plant operated with just two employees and a single cash register. Two years later, it has expanded to a staff of about eight and multiple registers to meet the growing demand in the area, he said.

And it’s not just a gas station that’s seen a boost.

Campsites have been built to accommodate the influx of workers living in campers and trailers. Homes are being built, bought and rented out for the workers. Even restaurants in surrounding areas are remodeling, he said.

“It’s more than ‘the plant will employ 40 to 50 people,’” Rodenhaber said. “It’s so much bigger than that. It’s like tentacles. It has outreach and affects the whole community.”

Coal plant to retire

About three miles from the gas plant sits TVA’s coal plant.

In 2023, TVA announced that the coal plant would be retired by 2028. As of July 2025, the plant is scheduled to close in 2026 as TVA continues its move to natural gas.

Although there’s a lingering closing date, that is not stopping plant manager Travis Patterson from making sure the plant’s about 320 weekly employees are safe and protected as they work in the plant.

“We’re still a vital aspect of the system, and we’re still investing in our equipment here,” Patterson said. “We still make investments to ensure safety, reliability.”

Standing outside 13 stories up, workers are seen busily moving coal to the silos.

On average, the plant burns about 22,000 units of coal a day. That coal turns to energy and helps power the seven states that TVA provides electricity for daily.

“We’re keeping the lights on for 10 million people,” Patterson said. “That’s the rewarding piece for me. We’re making a product that gets used by many people in the local areas we serve.”

‘We want to educate the public’

As AI, advanced manufacturing continues to make waves, TVA is keeping up with the demand and planning for the next generation.

As companies move to more use of AI, TVA is seeing upwards of 11,000 megawatts in requests from companies wanting data centers. In other words, enough energy to power six million homes.

“Our answer is ‘yes but’,” TVA public relations Scott Fiedler said. “ ‘Yes, but when we finish this plant’ or ‘yes, but can you do a demand response?’”

A demand response would allow TVA to know when the demand would increase from the companies.

TVA’s region, representing Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina and Virginia, has grown fast in population load, electric load growth and, until recent, GDP, Fiedler said.

TVA is trying to make sure the plants they have, and build, address the growth. Especially in the area from Bowling Green to Huntsville.

“It takes years to build a plant,” he said. “So we’ve got to be able to look at power load projected and be able to respond to things like AI or advanced manufacturing.”

TVA is also making moves to be the first utility to submit a plan to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build a nuclear reactor plant for nuclear energy near Oak Ridge.

“We’re expecting a lot of fast followers, who use the same technology because we paved the way,” Fiedler said.

So, why the move from coal to natural gas?

According to Fiedler, TVA has been making the transition for a few years because it’s dispatchable energy and cleaner.

“It’s all about planning now for our children and our grandchildren, because there’s no such thing as a power plant store,” he said.

That is also why TVA is on a tour, educating people about what they do and what it takes to make electricity as the demand and population continue to grow.

“Energy matters, we need more of it, and the TVA is building it,” Fiedler said.

Kenya Anderson is a reporter for The Leaf-Chronicle. She can be contacted at kanderson@gannett.com or on X at kenyaanderson32. Sign up for the Leaf-Chronicle to support local journalism at www.theleafchronicle.com.