Episode Description

Episode Highlights:

TAEBC’s new Power Infrastructure Solutions Working Group
A year-in-review of council activities and accomplishments
A Q&A session with our new council board members
Updates from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, TVA, and more!
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Episode Transcript

Cortney Piper: Welcome to Energizing Tennessee, powered by the Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council. We’re your number one podcast for news about Tennessee’s advanced energy sector. I’m your host, Courtney Piper. We’re kicking off our new season today with a star-studded lineup of guests from TAEBC’s annual meeting. Because it’s the annual meeting. If you missed the event, fear not. We recorded the whole thing and are going to play an abridged, listener-friendly version here so you can get caught up. A big highlight during the event was announcing TAEBC’s new Power Infrastructure Solutions Working Group. This group will bring together industry leaders to develop actionable, market-driven solutions to meet the state’s growing electricity demand and infrastructure challenges. You’ve got to be a gold or platinum member to participate, so go to our website and learn more at tnadvancedenergy.com. The meeting also featured a year in review of council activities and accomplishments, a QA session with our new council board members, and updates from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and TVA. Enjoy the episode.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council annual meeting. My name is Courtney Piper. I’m your executive director, and we are pleased to have you this morning. We’ve got a great program packed with lots of information, so we’re going to go ahead and get started. It is my pleasure to introduce Robert Hardin. He is a senior quality manager at Wakker Polysilicon North America, and he is also our president. So, Robert, take it away.

Robet Hardin: Thanks, Courtney. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the 2026 Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council’s annual meeting. As Courtney said, I’m Robert Hardin, and it’s a pleasure to see all of you attending this event from across the state and potentially even beyond. On behalf of our board of directors, I wanted to thank all of you for being here and for the dedicated work that you all do every day to strengthen Tennessee’s advanced energy economy. This past year has made one thing very clear, which I think all of you would agree, is that energy is no longer just a supporting function of economic development. It is the engine that drives economic development. Whether we’re talking about manufacturing growth, data infrastructure, grid reliability, or the emerging technologies being developed every day, energy sits at that center. Today’s agenda reflects that reality. You’ll hear about how some of our diverse stakeholders, ranging from industry, utilities, state agencies, and communities are working together to address Tennessee’s rapidly increasing demand for power. You’ll also hear how our state continues to lead on innovation from forward-looking regulatory frameworks to long-term system planning that balances growth, reliability, and competitiveness. Just as importantly, you’ll meet new leaders stepping forward to serve on our board, and their willingness to engage and lead is a reminder that our strength as an organization comes from collaboration across sectors, regions, and various perspectives. The TAEBC exists to be that convening force and to elevate our informed dialogue, connect decision makers, and to ensure Tennessee remains a place where the advanced energy innovation can thrive. None of that happens without our members, partners, and supporters, and we are deeply grateful for your continued engagement. And I look forward to hearing all of the discussions today. And with that, Courtney, I’ll turn it back over to you. Thank you for all for being here, and I’ll look forward to the conversations ahead.

Cortney Piper: Thank you, Robert. And now, it is my pleasure to introduce a video message from our United States Senator, Bill Hagerty. He could not join us today. He is very busy in Washington, D.C., but he wanted to send us this video message. Senator Bill Haggerty.

Senator Bill Hagerty: Hello, I’m United States Senator Bill Hagerty. I wish I could be with you today, but I wanted to take a moment to commend the important work you all are doing to advance Tennessee’s energy sector. We’re at a moment when energy, technology, and economic growth are converging in ways we haven’t seen in generations. And bringing together leaders who understand that intersection is exactly what this moment requires, especially for Tennessee. This is an issue I care deeply about, both personally and professionally. Because when we talk about the future of AI, advanced manufacturing, and American competitiveness, we’re really talking about energy. And few places in the country are better positioned to lead than Tennessee. Tennessee has something special. We have a strong industrial base, a skilled and reliable workforce, and decades of experience in power generation. Those advantages matter because as AI and advanced manufacturing expand, electricity is quickly becoming the binding constraint on growth. Industry today doesn’t just need power, it needs uninterrupted baseload power. It needs grid stability and it needs long-term price certainty. Energy abundance is no longer a nice to have. It’s a prerequisite for leadership. Intermittent sources alone cannot meet these demands at scale. And this isn’t a theoretical challenge. Across the country, data center growth is already colliding with grid limitations. Electricity demand nationwide is expected to grow by roughly 25% between now and 2030. Energy capacity has become a strategic asset. And the states that build it will attract the next generation of investment, innovation, and jobs. And that’s where Tennessee stands out. I’m particularly excited about nuclear energy as a technology that Tennessee is helping to advance. Nuclear power delivers what modern industry requires reliable, scalable, 24-7 electricity. There’s simply no other technology that provides the same combination of reliability, scale, and baseload power. At the same time, natural gas and coal remain vital to keeping our grid stable and our energy affordable. Together, these resources complement the expansion of next generation nuclear technologies that will define our future. The Tennessee Valley Authority plays a central role in this advantage. TVA’s diverse power mix, its deep nuclear experience, and its leadership in advanced energy deployment give Tennessee a platform that few others can manage. Tennessee is in a position not just to meet rising demand, but to lead. But this opportunity goes beyond any single institution. It’s about building an entire ecosystem. We need resilient supply chains for nuclear fuel and critical components. We need continued leadership in advanced materials, engineering, and manufacturing. And we need regulatory frameworks that are rigorous on safety while enabling innovation and timely deployment. If we get this right, the payoff will be enormous. Companies are looking for places where power is reliable, affordable, and abundant. They’re looking for certainty. And they’re looking for partners who understand long-term investment. These opportunities aren’t just about economic growth. They’re about economic security. The future will be one, not only in code, but in kilowatt. Not just for the next decade, but for the next century. I want to close where I began, and that’s with optimism. With strong leadership, committed to partners in business and government, and the talent and work ethic of Tennesseeans, we can seize this moment. We can make Tennessee a place where energy abundance powers innovation, manufacturing, and prosperity for generations to come. I look forward to what we can build together. Thank you.

Cortney Piper: Thank you, Senator Haggerty. We appreciate that. All right, now I’ve got a presentation as we do every annual meeting, taking a look back at 2025 and a look ahead at 2026. There’s no secret our industry highlights in 2025, nuclear energy had a moment. Everywhere from TVA receiving the support it needs to begin construction on the SMR to several of our member companies announcing big investments in Oak Ridge. Oak Ridge also had a moment in the advanced energy sector. They have attracted about $12 billion worth of private sector investment over the last five years. And the first quarter of 2026 was no different. We had a couple of our other member companies had some big announcements. Centris Energy announced a major expansion. This gave us lots of opportunities to champion the advanced energy industry. And we did that at our opportunities in energy event in November, which was our largest opportunities in energy to date. We also continued our engagement with the TVA integrated resource planning process. We are a member of their working group, and I presented the Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council’s comments to their February board meeting. We were also pleased to award Deputy Governor and ECD Commissioner Stuart McWarter the Thomas B. Ballard Advanced Energy Leadership Award at our Opportunities and Energy event that was presented by Arano. And we welcomed Carl Co. as our featured speaker at Opportunities and Energy. Like I said, it was our largest opportunities event to date. Last year, we welcomed 17 new members and across all of our events, our annual meeting, our lunch and learn, opportunities and energy, we had over 550 people join us. One of our goals, and this is feedback we received directly from our membership, is becoming the state’s number one source for advanced energy news. And we are continuing that trajectory. We have 4,500 social media followers, 4,500 email subscribers, and we are expanding our reach with our podcast. We will have new episodes out this summer. Here’s a little update on our commitments to our members and our stakeholders. Our first one is helping Tennessee become the number one state in the Southeast for high-quality jobs. Last year, 2024, we released our Advanced Energy Economic Impact Report. And in 2025, we took that report on the road. We took it on the virtual road. We provided briefings to our United States senators, our congresspeople, governor’s office, local elected officials, chambers and mayors across the state, to TVA, and it was a huge success and it was widely and well received across all constituencies. It’s obvious to see because we employ over 420,000 Tennesseans in the advanced energy sector and more than 22,000 businesses, and it contributes almost $56 billion to the state’s GDP. Advanced energy grows faster than the overall state economy. So it’s easy to see why when our elected officials and our policymakers see this information, they then become excited and engaged to develop strategies to seize the economic development opportunity. And we are grateful for this administration, for Governor Bill Lee, that he’s done that across advanced energy sectors. We celebrated a lot of our members’ success from Silicon Ranch to Kairos Power to Type 1 energy and TVA kicking off its SMR development. We’re even pleased to our friends at eTech were awarded a prestigious privilege to start the Tennessee Nuclear Network to champion the nuclear energy industry and develop workforce development and supply chain strategies to meet this moment that we are in right now. Our second commitment to our members and our stakeholders is to support TVA and local power companies’ efforts to become energy companies of the future. 2025 provided us with a lot of opportunities for that. We continued our engagement with the Integrated Resource Plan, serving on that working group. We welcomed a new CEO to TVA with Don Mall, and we were routinely sourced in the media for our commentary related to TVA’s board nominations and restoration of the board quorum. It is our opinion that the Tennessee Valley Authority has this, has shouldered this responsibility to meet the call for American energy dominance, and they are a critical part of doing that. Third is fostering the growth of Tennessee’s advanced energy technologies and startups. We do this through our partnership with Launch Tennessee with both the energy and now mobility networks. Last year, companies in that energy network raised about$36 million. They created or retained 500 jobs, and we served 75 companies through that program. And here you’ll see some of those successes. We also unveiled our newest industry partnership, the Spark Mobility Lab, again, in partnership with Launch Tennessee and the Spark Innovation Center. The Spark Mobility Lab will equip early stage mobility founders with the technical and economic tools they need to scale by combining technoeconomic analysis and lifecycle assessment training with direct industry engagement and investor readiness support. That first cohort kicks off very soon. And fourth, informing the national energy agenda. At the beginning of this year, it was clear to us that the energy tax credits that we participated in the public engaged engagement process for rulemaking around were in jeopardy. So we offered letters to our United States senators urging revisions to the One Beautiful Bill Act, one big beautiful bill act that repealed or restricted energy tax credits. We’re tirely tireless advocates for our members in advocating for those energy tax credits to stay. Again, we also hosted Carl Koe, the Chief of Staff for the United States Department of General Energy. His keynote remarks made national media headlines that are have now been released. So he first unfailed the Genesis mission, previewed the Genesis mission for us at Opportunities and Energy. He also revealed that we would be seeing energy projects from a US-Japan trade deal, and those were announced just this month. The Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council participates in the National Clean Energy Incubator Coalition. Every year they have an advocacy day in Washington, DC. Every year we join and advocate for the appropriate amount of funding for the Office of Technology Commercialization, which is responsible for moving advanced energy technologies from the lab into the marketplace. Now, looking ahead to 2026, we have new officers with the Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council. Robert Hardin joins us as our president, and Mark Gibson with the University of Tennessee Knoxville joins us as our secretary. You’ll hear from our new board members a little later on in this webinar: Tyler Malden with Google, Chris Jones with Middle Tennessee Electric, and Kyle Spurgeon with the Greater Jackson Chamber. We also had a great year making TAEBC your number one source of news and information, continuing with our podcast, Energizing Tennessee, our TVA Lunch and Learn. We hosted Doug Perry with TVA. We look forward to that annual event every year. We’re going to include a new annual webinar for mayors and chambers. It was so successful last year previewing our advanced energy economic impact report. We think it’s a great opportunity to continue to continue to champion the industry and serve as a resource for policymakers that can really harness the momentum from the advanced energy sector and continue its growth in their cities and their counties. We’ll continue supporting entrepreneurs and innovation. Now we have two areas that we can do this. We’ll continue with the energy network. Our Spark Accelerator cohort will kick off later this summer. Applications are now open. So if you know an advanced energy startup looking to advance its business model, and applications are now open. We’ll send you all some follow-up information regarding that. And the Spark Mobility Lab kicks off very soon, its very first cohort, and I am very excited to be reporting out on that later this summer. Now, our board met in February, and we have identified power infrastructure solutions as an opportunity for the Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council. In our comments uh on TVA’s draft IRP, we made a lot of really big statements related to building public private partnerships to deploy more advanced energy generation in the Tennessee Valley, citing onshoring of manufacturing and data centers and artificial intelligence as the reason why we need to be forward-looking with these sorts of things. Also, I had the opportunity to attend the AI Tennessee Summit last week in Nashville. And from that event, it was very, very clear that the White House is bullish on artificial intelligence. They are looking for Tennessee to lead, and Tennessee is very, very willing and equipped and ready to lead. We think this opens the door to lean into our mission to champion advanced energy as an economic development and job creation strategy. And so we’re going to do just that. Our board is convening a power infrastructure solutions working group. We know that this is an area where we can lean into and identify some policy solutions, both for the state and for TVA, so we can fully take advantage of this moment and make sure that we are able to get as much advanced energy generation online as possible so we can seize these moments with artificial intelligence and data centers in particular. There is, uh you will hear more about this in our panel that’s coming up right after my presentation. Um, this is but this is a moment for us. And what better organization to provide this industry level of expertise than the Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council? We are technology neutral. We include electricity and transportation, and anything that makes energy cleaner, safer, more secure, more efficient is in the tent. Our membership represents a great breadth and depth of expertise that we can bring to the table and offer policy solutions and recommendations to the state and to TVA so we can continue this mentum that we’ve seen over the last few years. Some next steps. Our board is going to convene our gold and platinum members to draft policy goals and recommendations. We’re going to conduct stakeholder interviews. We’ll have an online form for our corporate member feedback. Our board will approve all the reports and recommendations. Our goal is by the summer of 2026, we’ll have an initial report out and policy goals. And by the fall of 2026, we will have clear policy recommendations. We invite all of our gold and platinum members to join the Power Infrastructure Solutions Working Group. If you are not a member of TAEBC, you can go to our website and join. If you are already a member and you would like to become a gold or platinum member, you can reach out to me and we can help you upgrade your membership. I’ll leave it here with a Save the Date for Opportunities in Energy 2026, November 17th, 2026, in Knoxville, 9 to 5 p.m. Eastern. We had a great program last year and we are committed to having an even better program for this year. We have a lot of successes, a lot of wins to celebrate, and it’s just the first quarter of the year. And with that, we will begin our next panel. So with that, panelists, if you all want to get ready and turn on your uh your videos and your microphones. Our next panel is titled Powerful Allies: How Energy Stakeholders Are Working Together to Address Tennessee’s Increasing Need for Power. I’m pleased to welcome Braden Stover with the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development. He is their chief policy officer. We’ve got Tyler Mauldin with Google. He’s their lead energy regulatory and policy affairs. And we’ve got Chris Bowles with Bradley as our moderator. He is also our board member. Chris, please take it away.

Chris Bowles: Thanks, Courtney. So appreciate our panelists being here today. And I think this will be a fantastic uh discussion of some of the most important issues we’re facing in both economic development and the advanced energy sector. And to me it’s very exciting that those two things are intersecting in such a significant way. So I thought we would start with uh Braden. And in your role with uh Tennessee ECD, you’ve certainly seen a lot of these changes in recent years. So I think to help set the stage for where we are today, what have you seen in terms of the challenges and changes in the energy landscape and economic development over the last, uh, three years or so?

Braden Stover: Sure. Well, first of all, thank you for having me this morning. Great to be here. We’ve we’ve seen a lot of, you know, we kind of got into the energy conversation a few. Years ago, just based on what we were seeing, we were seeing projects that had increased power demands, and we weren’t able to locate them in Tennessee, just because we didn’t have the capacity on their timelines to be able to meet their needs. And really, what we’ve seen over the past few years is, you know, we have a great partnership with TVA. We work with them um every day here at the department, and they’ve really stepped up to the challenge of how can we think innovatively about um uh power generation, either from you know, companies kind of bringing their own power solutions to the table or thinking, you know, long-term down the road of what infrastructure investments can can they make to you know make sure that that we have power on the grid, uh, you know, one to two, three years, whatever that may be in the in the time frame. And then for us at ECD, working with companies to understand their timelines better, to, you know, if there is a long lead time before they would be operational, to kind of have that in mind when when talking with TVA. So it’s really been about communication, collaboration and thinking, you know, outside the box when it comes to how can we power um these projects. And that’s why we’re really excited about the nuclear side of things. We think that’s a you know long-term solution of getting more baseload power on the grid so that we can continue to grow as a state and be able to support big economic development projects, but also just the growth that we see overall. So it’s been it’s you know, we’ve come a long way in three years. We think we’ve, you know, the the best is yet to come. And we still, you know, we remain competitive with other states. And that would be my last point I’d make, you know, we’re we’re not alone, I guess, in the in the need for more power generation. We’re seeing this across the country, that other states are also facing these challenges. And um, you know, it’s one of those things we just have to continue to think outside the box and work together to um you know see what we can do in the most efficient time possible. Thanks, Braden.

Chris Bowles: And I think this might be too much of a softball for Tyler to start with him. So maybe I’ll stick with you, Braden, for a second. But uh yeah, Senator Haggerty may have uh stolen the thunder a little bit on this, but I’m curious from your perch at ECD, how you view data centers and AI in um you know in your work in terms of the need for power and uh overall economic development in the state.

Braden Stover: Sure. And I will always let Senator Haggard, as a, as a uh alum of the Haggerty team, I will always let him steal the thunder there. But um, but yeah, we’re seeing, you know, just like what everybody’s seeing kind of across the country, there are data centers that um you know are looking for places where they can locate. And a lot of that is driven by power. Um for us, we take our lead from TVA. And we also, you know, when it comes to data centers in the project Genesis, Genesis mission, uh, you know, what data centers can kind of serve the national security purpose, kind of thinking deeper with data centers of what the kind of end goal is. But for us, we recognize that data centers play a crucial role in how we compute and how we bring about additional abilities to handle the load of information that we’re seeing. And so it’s just a matter of how uh, you know, I think there’s a lot of negative publicity about data centers. So, you know, for us, it’s a matter of digging in with companies like that, of understanding what their utility loads are  on the front end and then having conversations with communities about what they’re comfortable with, what they’re interested in. You know, I don’t want to steal Tyler’s thunder, but I think as you know, data centers bring a lot of uh tax revenue for local communities, they do bring um, you know, jobs to those communities. And so it’s it can be an enticing proposition for probably some of our more rural communities that are looking for, you know, projects that don’t necessarily suck up a huge amount of the workforce and then they may have some excess power on the grid. So it’s basically a case-by-case kind of thing where we’re working to see what the right fit would be.

Chris Bowles: All right. So, Tyler, why don’t why don’t you pick it up from there in terms of the role that uh data centers and AI play in the economy?

Tyler Mauldin: Yeah, thank you, Chris, and thank you, Braden. Um, I’m with Google, so I’m obviously representing the data center industry here as part of the large loads, but one thing is clear data centers aren’t the only large loads that are coming to the valley. Uh Senator Haggerty also mentioned that in his introductory video. It’s not just data centers, you’ve got advanced manufacturing, you’ve got emergency, emerging industries and other large load users, large load power users that are coming here to the Tennessee Valley. Why is that? Well, for decades, TBA has led the charge on economic development because no company is going to bring their operations to an area if they can’t get affordable, low-cost, reliable energy. Thankfully, TBA has brought that to the table, which has attracted or recruited a lot of industry here to the Valley. Now we’re in a situation where not just Tennessee, but the Tennessee Valley Authority has an opportunity that is a once-in-a-lifetime generational opportunity to capture economic development. I think this is on the scale, the moment that we’re in is on the scale of what we saw after the TVA Act was implemented, electrifying rural America during the 70s when um you saw a huge demand in electricity, you saw that spike. And now, fast forward to today, you’re seeing something very similar. And to do this the right way means we need partnership, collaboration, and creativity to meet the moment and to meet the moment in the right way. To do so, that leads to speed to power, which equates to speed to market and allows uh the large load customers such as Google and the state of Tennessee to capture economic development very quickly. Um, again, as Braden mentioned, there are lots of benefits to data centers in these large loads, uh, coming to the valley, uh, especially from a tax revenue standpoint, as well as high-paying jobs, uh, coming right here to the Valley. So, speed to market, speed to power equates to speed to market. We’re very pro-um uh public power here in um the Tennessee Valley. And I think TVA has a prime opportunity to be a model for the rest of the country of how to meet this moment the right way through public-private partnerships.

Chris Bowles: Thank you, Tyler. And maybe staying with you for a second, uh, if you don’t mind talking about some of the public-private partnerships that uh Google has been uh engaged in in the Valley.

Tyler Mauldin: Yeah, specifically here in the Valley, I mean, the first one that comes to mind is Kairos Power. So Kairos Power is a very important partnership to us and TVA. Um it’s a first of its kind partnership. Um so we’re excited to uh embark on this journey with Kairos Power and TVA, where we’re bringing um at least 50 megawatts of uh carbon firm carbon-free energy to the grid. And as Courtney mentioned earlier, um Kairos Power has already started constructing their reactor, and it’s the only one under construction at this moment. The deal that we signed with with TBA and Kairos Power can be much higher than that, all the way up to 500 megawatts. And we would love to bring that here to the valley. In addition, we’ve worked very closely with TBA on um flexible load demand response activities. That’s a way for the data centers and other large roads to not just be power users, but also be grid resources. So during times of constraint, especially during the winter time, uh, we’re able to flexibly displace our load and move it to another data center to help relieve the peak demand that TVA and utilities are seeing. Uh, we’re also exploring other innovative ways that we can bring clean energy and renewable energy online into the uh distribution grid, working closely with not just TVA, but also the local power companies as well.

Chris Bowles: And and Braden, uh from uh ECD perspective, uh you’ve obviously done a lot of work uh with uh Governor Lee’s nuclear initiatives. Uh how do you view that uh public-private partnership uh or even just public sector initiatives more broadly in the Valley?

Braden Stover: Yeah, I I would just say, you know, we were extremely excited to see the partnership with Google and Kairos. I think that is going to help drive a lot of the nuclear development that we see when you have the private sector coming up with their own uh power generation solutions and how to get that on the grid. And so, you know, we are extremely supportive of Kairos and the work that they’re doing in Oak Ridge. Hopefully, uh we can get even more of their reactors kind of deployed and on the grid. And you know, seeing that kind of you know, a similar partnership looking at Amazon and Xenergy, um, you know, having these uh companies that understand what their needs are from a power perspective and looking, you know, the private sector moves moves quickly. And so when they deploy funds, that makes things happen and that kind of pushes the rest um down the chain. And so we’re really excited to see that development. And I think, you know, for us and and working with TVA, TVA again has taken an innovative approach to you know, looking at the Kairos project, type one, you know, looking at nuclear fusion and what can we get on the grid, how much can we get on the grid to to support projects in the future. So um it’s been it’s been really cool to see from from our perspective. It also makes makes our job a lot a lot easier when you have a partner like TVA that is willing to do uh cooperative agreements like that. That makes a very uh makes a really good incentive to bring companies to the valley, especially in the nuclear space, um, that have you know a leader in nuclear like TVA. So um, you know, we’re thinking that the best is yet to come on that front. Uh there’s there’s a lot still kind of being developed. I know Courtney mentioned the um uh the the Japan fund announcement with TVA and the Clinch River project. So, you know, we think that is going to continue to kick things off in terms of small modular reactors and being deployed in Tennessee and the supply chain that comes with that. So um, you know, I think I think there’s a lot of things coming down the pike that are very exciting when it comes to an energy uh perspective. And I think the private sector is going to be uh really leading that.

Tyler Mauldin: So, Chris, I was just gonna jump in here real quick. Uh, the current administration has a goal of strengthening the US’s position as an energy and technology leader. TVA is in a prime position to be the model and how to do that the right way through these public-private partnerships. Um, the collaboration is extremely key to do this the right way and to do it at speed. Um, no utility or large load customer should be taking on this fight solo. It is gonna take a true partnership to ensure that the administration’s goal of uh strengthening the US as an energy and technology leader uh comes to fruition. So these partnerships that we’re talking about, um they’re they’re huge today and they’re gonna be even bigger, even more important uh over the next several years.

Chris Bowles: Well, Tyler, that’s a great uh segue into um uh the next uh question or set of questions I had, which was you know, we’ve talked about what has been done, uh and what’s in process, but how do you view uh you know facing this challenge, which I think is ever increasing in terms of the policy solutions that might be needed for it? And really, um how do we balance that public sector role with the free market? Because you know, back in uh the 30s when TVA was created, there was a very specific need for striking that balance between the public sector and the private sector. And I think that public power model still plays such a critical role as you both have mentioned. Um but what is the role as the free market in many ways, and also uh the uh federal administration’s initiatives, but has really uh the free market is driving so much of the um data center growth and technology growth. Um, how do you view that balance between um private sector and and not just private sector work with the public sector, but also just pure free market policies um relative to that public-private partnership?

Tyler Mauldin: Well, from my perspective, um, you know, we’re not in the 1930s anymore, we’re now in the 2020s. So the public power model is still highly effective, but maybe it does need to evolve a little bit to um to be able to capture the private capital um to help meet the moment very quickly. So, from my perspective, um, you know, we we we need that slight model design um to tweak just very very slightly. From Google’s perspective, we we prefer network power because network power is affordable and it’s reliable. If we go behind the meter or bring system resources in front of the meter, it’s to be a bridge source to getting that network capital or that network power. So the idea is if we bring our own generation, it will be that bridge source. And then when the network um capacity is available, whatever resource that we just brought to the table, whether it’s behind the meter or in front of the meter, it becomes a grid resource and it is able to help increase the reliability, stability, affordability of the grid, as well as decarbonizing the grid for everyone.

Chris Bowles: Right, and maybe unfair to ask the public sector that question, but uh curious your thoughts on that free market role in crafting something that’s a really a public resource.

Tyler Mauldin: Sure. I mean, I think the free market always drives uh probably the from my just personal perspective, the best solutions. Uh and I think it’s on us to create an environment that enables that innovation to take place. And that’s really, you know, for our for our uh perspective at ECD, we are really the um, you know, convener, the bringing together of people to find solutions. And a lot of times that what that takes place there is, you know, we we have kind of this view across the state where we can interact with a lot of different stakeholders. And so what we’re able to do is connect people, you know, say that are over here, that maybe aren’t talking over here, and make sure that they are um able to connect and maybe come up with solutions that we just wouldn’t have thought of to begin with. And so, really for us, you know, we try to elevate uh challenges in the energy space and then help, you know, enable stakeholders to come to solutions and then um really just kind of support uh the the path that I guess is determined from that uh kind of collaboration there. So really we try to stay um, we we try to stay out of uh TVA’s lane, you know, and and when it comes to energy, let them kind of do their thing. But um we always provide you know supportive um you know feedback. We have a great relationship with our federal delegation. Uh we work well, you know, we work with our General Assembly every day. So really for us it’s it’s kind of stakeholder engagement and making sure that everybody’s on the same page about what what solutions are out there and making sure that we’re all working in a collaborative way.

Chris Bowles: Yeah, and the most important part from my perspective there, Braden, is that we can’t do this in silos. So all the key stakeholders need to be at the table talking with each other to ensure that we do this the right way. Absolutely.

Braden Stover: Um you both perfectly set up uh the wrap-up that that I’ll do here, which is uh yeah, I think that is something that TAEBC is proud to do, uh, bring together stakeholders and and thank those stakeholders like uh Google and uh ECD and the work that we are able to do across sectors uh as a technology neutral advanced energy organization. We are looking to bring together uh really anyone who can help uh provide those uh solutions that bring together the business side and the advanced energy side, which is truly, albeit probably not word for word, but uh the mission of TAABC. And so we are excited to uh continue to work uh on that as we move forward. Uh and I think Courtney will be saying a few words on that as well. And then I’ll also just uh wrap up, I think, with a uh I always like to try to find some uh synthesis between the you know various comments we’ve heard. Um but yeah, to me, you know, when I hear Tyler say uh speed to power is speed to market, um, I think that is a really critical takeaway because also speed to market to me says speed to capital. And I think in talking about that role of the free market, especially as it relates to the public power model and just the job creation mission, uh it is that private capital that is going to help with those solutions. Um, I remember it was uh earlier in my career uh hearing Governor Haslum describe economic development uh and saying economic development is with when the private sector puts capital at risk. And uh I think that is what we uh are looking to do in solving this. And uh speed is critical. And I will also say um this may be reading between the lines a little more than something that was said expressly, but uh predictability is so critical to the private sector’s ability to put that capital at risk. And so that’s been something that TBA has really been a leader in for decades, and decades and decades, is being able to provide some of that stability and predictability. I think it’s harder and harder to do that these days. And so marrying that private capital, that speed, and predictability together, I think is really the challenge that we all need to meet. Um, not an easy one, but one that we are happy to be a convener for. So um thank you. And Courtney, I’ll turn it back over to you.

Cortney Piper: Chris, Tyler, and Braden, thank you again. And to our members, if you’d like to continue this conversation and be part of crafting these solutions, we welcome our Golden Platinum members to join our power infrastructure solutions working group. Our charge, like Chris said, is to develop actionable market-driven solutions to meet the state’s growing electricity demand and infrastructure challenges. And we’ll produce a report and policy recommendations to both the state and TBA. They’ll focus on accelerating the deployment of new generation and grid capacity, attracting private capital investment, and then expanding flexibility and optionality for our local power companies. Thank you. All right. We will move on to our next speaker. She represents the kind of forward thinking that keeps Tennessee at the forefront of advanced energy. She is TDEX director of the Division of Radiological Health. Beth Shelton is playing a key role in developing a first of its kind state regulatory framework for fusion energy, helping position Tennessee as a national leader in preparing for this emerging field. So, Beth, take it away.

Beth Shelton: Hi. Um I’m so glad to let y’all have uh let me come and talk to y’all today. I will add um from Braden and Tyler and Chris’s um panel, um, the coordination um between ECD and TDEC has like really stepped up since all of this has been happening. And um I feel like Braden is on speed dial for me and hope I think he probably feels the same way. Um we um we have been working together hand in hand with um all these new new companies coming. So um, but I am here today to talk about fusion and um how we are going um to uh talk about how we’re um actually going to be regulating these fusion machines that are coming to Tennessee. Um I will say that um we’re not doing this alone. We’ve been working closely with NRC and other states out there that um to help shape an um an efficient and forward looking regulatory framework. So uh in 2023, NRC decided that fusion would be regulated under Part 30. Which means if a state is an agreement state, they will have the authority to regulate this new technology. Um the NRC and agreement states operate as regulatory partners under what we call the National Materials Program. We all work together on developing new regulations and creating the regulatory guides and procedures, and we share our experiences and insight to help each other as new technologies come on board. Currently there are 40 agreement states and we regulate approximately 90% of the material licenses in the US. Because the states see the majority of these licensees, we’re the ones that experience and have the knowledge to figure out the best way to regulate these emerging technologies. So that’s where fusion kind of fits in well here because we need to figure out how to regulate them. So working together has been extremely helpful in this pursuit. One thing I continue to stress when chatting with other states is that they need to review their regulations and their laws, make sure that they can regulate fusion the way they need to. When we first found out about type one energy, we did a deep dive into our regulations and in our laws and found that we needed to make a few changes, not to the laws, thank goodness, but to our regulations. So after figuring that out, we submitted proposed regulations that include fusion-specific language along with a proposed fee structure. So these are currently with our Secretary of State’s office and they’ll be effective June 9th of this year. This will make Tennessee the first in the US to have a regulatory framework for fusion. One thing we have been told is that this is really helpful to industry so that they can know the regulatory with regulatory certainty when they’re deciding um where to site their fusion machines. So I think that does help Tennessee become more attractive. I think one thing that Tennessee has done that has really helped us in working with is working with industry. We need to know, we need to understand what we’re regulating since finding out that type one energy would be coming to Oak Ridge. We’ve been meeting regularly with them to ensure that we know exactly what is happening and how to regulate them. We’ve walked through every part of their plan and their technology. We have with them, we’ve walked them through the application process and all of our requirements. We currently have a regulation that says that we the max amount of time that we have to issue a license once they apply is 365 days. So that’s the way we’re able to meet that and help them get going faster. One of our biggest questions has been how do we determine a fee for these machines? Most states are fee funded. This makes it very important to figure out how much is going it’s going to cost our agency to actually perform all the duties to oversee fusion machines. This includes application review, checking accuracy for some very complex calculations, issuance of a license, inspections, environmental monitoring, emergency response if any is needed. Some states have decided to hire consultants to perform these complex calculations. And it’s costing them anywhere between$50 and$60,000 to do one calculation. We’re going to do that, we’re going to try to do that on our own but because we have some very good technical people on staff. But that’s a lot to think about when you’re trying to create a fee structure. And because everything is so unknown right now, we decided it would be hard to determine that fee, that how much it was going to cost to run our program. So we created a new regulatory framework that includes a fee rule that is we’re going to be charging by cost recovery. We’ve never done that in the past, really, so that’s different. And I think it’s going to be very helpful so that we don’t overcharge them, but also don’t undercharge them and have to end up going into letting other licensees fit the bill for regulating fusion. We also submitted a budget request last year to help us get going. The governor and legislature approved giving us$2 million a year and five positions that will help us get this fusion program going. With these five new positions, we did decide one position that would be important would be to create a PIO within our division. The department has POs and we use them often. However, there’s always this learning curve when it comes to when we go to our POs because they don’t really know what we do. We’re very different than the other divisions. So with everything happening in Tennessee right now, we decided that this would be a good use of one of these positions. This person is currently working on the public outreach for fusion and other advanced nuclear stuff, working on our website and some other things. But then they’re also in the process of learning how to be an inspector so that they can truly understand what they’re speaking about and the technologies that are out there. The other thing I like to mention is that many states don’t that many states don’t do environmental or aren’t required to do environmental monitoring around certain licensees. Our regulations give us this authority to perform the monitoring and then charge the real cost back to the licensee. This has been extremely helpful in the past if we force public inquiries around these facilities. It may cost the licensee a bit of additional money, but we haven’t had even one complaint from them. They use this in their public outreach to show they are doing everything by the book and nothing is out there being harmful in the environment. It’s come in handy for us and the licensees to be able to say, see, we’re not doing anything. The state’s also looking into what’s out there. So all of this work has led us to where we are right now. We received our first fusion application in January, and we are working very hard at reviewing this license application. And hopefully we’re we’re hoping that we’ll have a license issue within six months. So thanks for letting me share our joint journey with you, and I don’t mind answering any questions.

Cortney Piper: All right. Thank you, Beth. We appreciate you joining us today. We don’t see any questions in our QA box. So we will move to our next panel. But Beth, if you can stick around, maybe if folks pop in there, um we can get to questions a little later. All right, I am pleased to introduce and welcome our three new board members to the Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council, and you all can get to know them a little bit more if you don’t know them already. So please help me welcome back Tyler Mauldin with Google, Chris Jones with Middle Tennessee Electric, he is the president and CEO, and Kyle Spurgeon with the Greater Jackson Chamber, he is also the president and CEO. Gentlemen, welcome. Thank you. Good morning. All right. First question, this should be an easy one. And Chris, we will start with you, but tell the folks here today a little bit about yourself and why you wanted to join the Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council board.

Chris Jones: Sure. So thank you, Courtney. Good morning, everyone. Um, yeah, Chris Jones, CEO of Middle Tennessee Electric in a position of honor to occupy. Uh so Middle Tennessee Electric, uh, we’re an electric cooperative serving Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson, and Cannon counties. We we actually touch 11 other counties uh south of Nashville. And um by electric cooperative standards, we are unusual in terms of scale and scope. We serve um uh more than 360,000 accounts, about 750,000 Tennesseans residentially. Uh so we’re the second largest electric co-op in the country. And um, among the local power companies in the valley, we’re the third largest behind Memphis and Nashville. Um uh so again, um honored to be part of this um of this council because of the work that it’s seeking to do and you know, uh with the conversations we’ve heard this morning, uh the um um some of the points that were raised by uh Braden and Tyler and Chris, things that we’re interested in seeing to facilitate, and you know, things that make sense, but we’ve got that we got to figure out. You know, with there there’s there’s there’s more to it, of course, with some of the um as uh with all the virtues of the public power model, there are uh there are um you know details to consider, there are regulations, there are politics that certainly we are grappling with right now. But again, we have a unique opportunity at this time in place to shape the future of the energy industry and the future of Tennessee. And it’s very bright, it’s very exciting, uh, and it’s important to be involved in this work. And again, I’m honored to be part of it. And I think this council can really do a lot uh to uh to shape where things are going.

Cortney Piper: Great. Thank you, Chris. Kyle, tell us a little bit more about you and why you decided to join the Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council board.

Kyle Spurgeon: Yeah, sure. Uh good morning, thank you, and uh appreciate having this opportunity to uh talk to everyone on this call this morning. My name’s Kyle Spurgeon. I am president and CEO of the Greater Jackson Chamber. Uh, been fortunate to hold this position for almost 17 years now. I grew up in Paris, Tennessee. My background is uh chamber and economic development work, also spent uh eight years at Jackson Energy Authority, and then a total of, I think, four years at the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development at two different stints. And uh so living in the economic development space, uh, I have been able to witness really a transition of importance of factors that uh are related to site selection. Uh, I can tell you when I started this business and really in the early 2000s, it was just the old real estate mantra of location, location, location. And I remember there was someone at the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development that had developed a map that showed over the last 20 years at that time the amount of economic development announcements that had occurred around interstates in Tennessee. And of course, when you looked at the interstate system across the state and looked at those projects, they were zeroed in on interstates. Then we’ve transitioned into a piece where it was site selection was dominated by workforce development. And those communities that did not and were not able to supply the workforce were the ones that were left behind. Those communities that were able to support workforce development with a strong public education system, private schools, colleges, and universities, you saw those communities continue to grow. Now, what we’re seeing from site selection development folks and economic development folks that are citing projects is it’s all about energy. And um, listening to Senator Hagerty this morning, he’s exactly right. Uh, power is the constraint. And I do believe that that gives Tennessee an opportunity that we’re taking advantage of right now because that constraint exists all across the country. I’m not aware of another state that has put together so many different resources and has convened as many conversations as Tennessee has uh in this country. And I believe that gives us really a unique opportunity, but it’s a lead that we’ve got. Um, you know, we’re at we’re down to the final four now, and uh Dewcattle 19-point lead, they didn’t hold that. And um, so we’ve got to make sure we hold that lead and continue uh to push and support elected officials, our local power providers working with TVA uh to make sure that Tennessee continues to increase that lead over other states and has the ability to cite projects not that are just related to AI and data centers, but the advanced energy type projects and advanced manufacturing projects uh that we’re seeing. So uh I believe uh, you know, serving on this board, if you just look at it, um you get smarter when you surround yourself with smart people. And uh so this is my second opportunity to be uh uh have a conversation uh with this board and all of you that are watching today. Just look at who serves on this board. And uh you might be a little bit jealous because I get to sit in a room and listen and learn from a lot of folks who are extremely smart in this space. And I look forward to continuing those conversations.

Cortney Piper: Thank you, Kyle. All right, Tyler, bring us home. Tell us, tell us a little bit more about you. You’ve told us about Google and why you wanted to join the board.

Tyler Mauldin: Yeah, good morning, everyone. So Tyler Mauldin. I am based out of our office in Atlanta, Georgia. Um, I am on the energy regulatory and policy affairs team at Google. What I bring to this role is about 10 years of experience across the utility industry as well as the hyperscale data center industry. Most recently, I was at Microsoft where I was a commercial energy buyer. Prior to that, uh, I was with Next Area Energy subsidiary Florida Power and Light Company. So I’m able to take these roles and apply it strategically in this uh new position that I’m in at Google. Um, Google, uh a little company that you may have heard of, we are developing um those data centers, both AI and cloud, uh, that has been getting a lot of attention as of late for good reason. Um, why did I join the board? Well, I very much feel I’m passionate about economic development, especially in the Tennessee Valley, despite working for Google, who’s headquartered out of San Francisco. Again, I’m based in Atlanta, but I grew up in the Tennessee Valley. Um I’m from a small town, Calhoun, Georgia, uh, just south of Chattanooga. Um, that’s where I was where I grew up. Uh, went to school in Georgia, um, undergrad as as well as grad school. So seeing the Tennessee Valley thrive is a huge passion of mine. And I feel very strongly that in this role at TAEBC, we have the voice to be able to position the valley to capture economic development the right way for decades to come. And fully agree with what Chris said earlier. Um, you know, we are in a position right now to build the energy system of the future that we want to see today. So very excited to be a part of that.

Cortney Piper: Question back to all of you What is the greatest opportunity for Tennessee’s advanced energy industry? And Tyler, let’s start with you and then go to Kyle.

Tyler Mauldin: Um, as I mentioned earlier, the Tennessee Valley Authority is in a prime position to capture the current administration’s goal of strengthening the US as an energy and technology leader. That really excites me. And the creativity and the partnership that we have been showing with TVA, not just Google and TVA, but other large load customers in TVA over the last several years to capture this moment really excites me. So I very much am excited about uh bringing more public-private partnerships to the table, such as the Kairos TVA, Google uh announcement and seeing those opportunities at scale to meet this moment the right way.

Cortney Piper: All right. And Kyle, what is the greatest opportunity for Tennessee’s advanced energy industry?

Kyle Spurgeon:I think like a lot of organizations, uh, TAABC has the opportunity. We’re a convener of conversations. Uh, if it were not for us, a lot of these conversations would be happening in silos. And this organization can continue to bring smart people to the table, folks that understand how to continue to push Tennessee, move us forward so we maintain that lead that I mentioned earlier. But just making sure that uh we convene those conversations and then take what we have learned and put it in front of the folks that are making decisions, whether it be at the federal or state level, and then also informing those local power providers and everyone else how they can support those initiatives. So I think bottom line, it’s being a very intelligent convener.

Cortney Piper: Great. And Chris?

Chris Jones: So I want to start with just saying very quickly that, you know, we stand at a good spot. We have a great foundation. And from the standpoint of Middle Tennessee Electric, you know, we are a top decile in reliability, affordability, and in customer satisfaction. And if Evan were on here from EPB, he would say the same thing. We are there from that standpoint. Our rates at the end of 2025 residentially were 40%, 40% lower than the national average. So we’re on a we have a good foundation, but as we look forward and thinking about what we’re building on, uh again, I agree with what my fellow panelists said, but we have the opportunity to be the global leader, the global difference maker, and leading the charge from an energy security and national security standpoint with nuclear energy. That to me, that’s where we can, you know, make an incredible difference. Uh and I’m you know, that’s not hyperbole to say those things. We are in a position as a state to do incredible things to help our country, to help those that we serve, to make a difference, to shape this industry. And so I’m very, as you can tell, excited about that.

Cortney Piper: And, one additional comment slash question before we hear from TBA on the IRP process. And I said this a lot last year, and I want to get your all’s feedback on this. But last year, and I think it was during an ECD budget committee meeting, Senator Bo Watson from the Chednoogan, the Hickson area, voiced a concern that he thought that no longer would it be that workforce development would be an obstacle to economic development. It was gonna be access to power. And he thought that access to power would be our new limiting factor to seizing economic development opportunities. And I wanted to get Earl’s reaction to that, to that statement and that moment in time of power kind of being this new workforce development, you know, figuring out that piece of the puzzle. That’s what’s gonna help us either seize or relinquish some of these economic development opportunities.

Chris Jones: Wait, I’ll jump in first since I was my last there. Um so um, yeah, I I think yes. So number one, workforce is is gonna be a challenge, but it’s it’s it’s gonna be a good problem to have. Uh, and we can we can figure that out. And more people are wanting to come to Tennessee. Uh so that brings other infrastructure questions as well, but that’s uh conversation for another time. But as far as power availability, yeah, but yeah, it’s not uh it’s an opportunity. And and the challenge is anywhere around the country, as we all know. Again, we have the opportunity here to seize as to use your term, um, Courtney, on the moment to make a difference, to build out more capacity and be the economic development engine that we want to be. So again, we just got to figure it out. And and I’m gonna tee up Tyler here for those public uh private partnerships he’s been he’s been talking about, because I I agree. I mean, that that’s where we can we can make some hay and we can make a difference. But again, the beauty of this and the public power model is that it’s it’s belongs to us. So, and again, there are hurdles we’ve got to traverse, but it belongs to us, we get to shape it. Let’s work together, figure these things out, and we’ve got a bright future.

Tyler Mauldin: So I’ll just piggyback off of what Chris said to just make it abundantly clear to everyone on the call that Google is a huge advocate of the public power model, and we want to see it continue, we want to see it thrive. Economic development is a core tenet, so part of the mission of the TVA Act. So it is core to the uh the engine of TVA. So that end, and I mentioned this earlier, I believe. Utilities have led the charge on the economic development for decades. No company is gonna um set up shop in a new territory or expand in a territory if they don’t have access to affordable, reliable power. As Chris just mentioned, the local power companies in TVA have dominated on that front for decades. And that’s attracted not just data centers, it’s retracted that’s attracted other industries to the valley as well. Now, post-pandemic, what are companies also factoring into that economic development equation? It’s not just affordable, reliable power, it’s also having that robust digital infrastructure in place for their operations. You’ve definitely seen that post 2020 as everyone started working more remote and more hybrid. Um, so having the data centers come to the valley and working in tandem with the utilities, it sets up a virtuous cycle. Uh, to answer your question directly, though, Courtney, I mean. Speed to power equates to speed to market. So the quicker you can get the capacity online, the quicker you can capture the economic development that is um that is coming here to the Valley.

Cortney Piper: Great. And Kyle, you are the president and CEO of a chamber in Jackson, Tennessee. What are you seeing with this access to power economic development quandary?

Kyle Spurgeon: Yeah, and I’ll just go back to what you mentioned with the Senator Watson. He’s absolutely correct. Uh I will want to make sure that I think when he is saying that, he is not discounting workforce development. But it’s just as we look at how site selection consultants are viewing locations for projects, energy is right up there at the top now. And it’s just like, you know, if your site doesn’t work, then you’re not going to locate a project. If you don’t have the workforce, you’re not going to locate the project. Now energy holds a more substantial part of that weighted Excel spreadsheet or whatever kind of spreadsheet they use to evaluate a location. Um we look at, you know, I’m here in Jackson, right in the middle of West Tennessee. We are not Oak Ridge. We are not going to see the same type of nuclear development uh that Oak Ridge does. But Jackson and West Tennessee are very uniquely positioned to take advantage and be very successful on the supplier side. And then we can also take advantage of what happens with Jackson Energy Authority, just like Chris is talking about there with Middle Tennessee. We’re very uniquely positioned because we have a very strong utility that can respond to changing needs. We have never done a project here without JEA being at the very front of that project. What JEA can do moving forward is going to be informed and dictated by the decisions that we make as a state and through TVA as how energy is developed and distributed across the state.

Cortney Piper: Kyle, thank you very much. Chris and Tyler, welcome to the TABC Board of Directors. We are thrilled to have you. All right. Closing us, thank you. Closing us out, I’d like to welcome Clifton Lowry with TVA. He’s with Planning and Investor Relations. He’s going to give us an update on the IRP. Clifton and I have spent the better part of two and a half years together on this IRP working group. And uh, you know, we are hoping at some point we will have a final RFP. So Clifton, please take it away and give us an update.

Clifton Lowry: Yeah, sounds good, Courtney. Good morning, everyone. Good to see y’all. So yeah, it has been quite the journey. And I’ll I’ll give kudos to Courtney out of the gate. So for a TAEBC, I don’t think you would have a better representative on the IRP working group to help us achieve the objective we’re we’re seeking to achieve, which is essentially laying the foundation for developing new asset plans, new long-range financial plans, ultimately aimed at continuing to provide affordable, reliable power for the Tennessee Valley region. So Courtney’s done a phenomenal job kind of pushing us, pushing the group, challenging where appropriate. And I think we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel here. Um we it has been about a two and a half year or so journey. We started this process back in 2023, recognizing that you know a lot had changed since we had issued and finalized our last IRP back in 2019. And just for a little bit of fun, I did a quick Google search. Uh Tyler, you’ll appreciate this of uh, you know, what were the trending searches there in 2019 when we uh we finalized TVA’s last IRP? So it was uh Disney Plus was about to be launched. Um you had uh no searches around a global pandemic that hadn’t even happened yet. So terminology that wasn’t germane to kind of the nation at that point or the world. And we were still on the iPhone 11, and just for context, we’re on the iPhone 17 now. So it has been a while, a lot has changed. Uh we recognize the need for a new integrated resource plan again to kind of set this strong planning foundation for asset plans, financial plans, and then ultimately implementation and execution. That’s what comes next. And so started this in 2023, two and a half years later, we’ve we’ve kind of navigated some evolving circumstances. We are on the cusp of essentially bringing a final IRP to the TVA board through committee meetings in April. So just next month or here in just a handful of weeks, and then ultimately positioning for a final IRP approval at the May public board meeting toward the end of the month of May. And so very excited to kind of have this artifact and this uh evaluation and analysis complete because I think it enables a lot of what the conversation has been around today. So, how do we continue to deliver on our mission? How uh being in you know, affordable, reliable power, because that supports economic development, that has consideration for what’s the overall environmental impacts, you know, how do we continue to be good stewards of the environment as we uh provide a power portfolio that meets these objectives? And so I’m excited. You know, we’ve got just a handful of things to wrap up over the next few weeks, and that’s going to really tee up a lot of really interesting conversation, uh, again, much of which uh has been covered today. So, Courtney, with that little bit of uh backdrop in mind, I’ll I’ll kind of pause here and see if there’s any questions that you may have or the group may have. And thank you again for your support.

Cortney Piper: Of course. Uh, if anybody has questions, we’ve got time for just one or two questions. You can use that QA box and we will ask Clifton your questions about the IRP. Clifton, for everybody’s awareness, again, if you’ll go over the timeline for when the draft IRP will be presented and the implementation and adoption timelines.

Clifton Lowry: Yeah, that’s a good question. So um we’re going through kind of completing the IRP work now. We shared that with the results with the IRP working group actually last week, gathered feedback there. We’re going to be doing that same process through a series of public virtual webinars as well as the Regional Energy Resource Council. So that’s one of TBA’s federal advisory committees that we will ask um the RERC for advice on, particularly to your point, implementation considerations for kind of this analysis. You know, what what the IRP does is it provides kind of the compass of where we’re going to go in the future. It doesn’t exactly uh perform as a GPS that says, you know, turn left here and you know take interstate 40 there. It’s really more about directional um uh considerations. But as we get into making project or program decisions, there are significant implementation considerations that that come in. And so that’s where RERC will provide advice there. And so all that gets to, again, kind of the uh end of April uh TBA board committee, internal board committee meetings where we’ll produce the approval action for the board’s consideration, gather any feedback, share stakeholder feedback that we’ve gathered over these uh next couple of weeks, and then we’ll present that final um recommendation for the board’s approval at the uh May 22nd uh TBA public board meeting.

Cortney Piper: Okay, well, Clifton Lowry, thank you very much for joining us today and giving our members an update on the IRP process. We’ll look forward to those public virtual webinars and also the presentation to the board on May 22nd.

Clifton Lowry: Sounds good. Good to see you all this morning.

Cortney Piper: Thank you. All right, thank you all for joining us at TAEBC’s annual meeting. We were thrilled to host you. Please watch your email for additional updates and events over the summer. We plan to have a social, in-person networking event as well as our TVA Lunch and Learn, and our signature summer events. And mark your calendar, save the date for Opportunities in Energy on November 17th in Knoxville. Again, if you are not a member, we invite you to join the Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council. You can find more information at our website, tnadvancedenergy.com. That’s tnadvancedenergy.com. And we encourage you to be a gold or platinum member and shape the future of energy policy in the Valley. With that, we are adjourned.

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