JARRETT GOODMAN
Staff Writer
Members of Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) recently hosted a presentation dedicated to energy production and the company’s future goals as part of its ongoing American Energy Tour at TVA’s Raccoon Mountain Pump Station.
Created in 1933 during the Great Depression, TVA is among one of the largest and federally owned electrical companies in the nation, generating power to millions of homes through nuclear energy and hydroelectricity. Scott Fielder, secretary of Media Relations for TVA, explained the purpose of the American Energy Tour is to demonstrate the importance of energy not only local to the greater Tennessee Valley but also throughout the entire U.S.
The presentation held at Raccoon Mountain is the eighth in TVA’s ongoing tour. Those who were invited were given the opportunity to see in-person the pump station and learn about how it generated power to the surrounding Chattanooga and Marion County areas. Hollie Hess, General Manager for the pump station, explained each megawatt of electricity generated from Raccoon Mountain ties into a greater power grid that expands and connects into both Marion and Hamilton counties.
“We do support Jasper and the rest of Marion County,” said Hess. “It’s hard to say directly that every megawatt from Raccoon Mountain goes here or there because we tie to a bigger grid that feeds into a lot of areas.”
Raccoon Mountain Pump Station is located west of Chattanooga and east of Jasper off Highway 41 inside the state-owned Wildlife Observation Area. The pump station is TVA’s largest hydroelectric facility, housing four generators capable of powering nearly one million homes. Fielder explained TVA is currently constructing over 37,000 megawatts of additional electricity through new power facilities currently underway. The company’s newest proposed pump facility, planned to be built by Rorex Creek in nearby Jackson County, Alabama, is in the process of finalizing all documentations needed prior to an official Record of Decision being made.
“We started back in 2023 and it took us about two years to accomplish all the environmental and geologic studies to determine if Rorex Creek is a viable site,” shared Scottie Barrentine, Senior Project Manager for the Rorex Creek project.
One of TVA’s other initiatives is to attract new employees into the company, as the age median for the company is 46 years. Because of shortages of employees due to the ongoing nationwide shortage in skilled labor–caused by an aging workforce, advancement in AI software, and a decline in technical training programs–the company is taking strides to attracting the next generation of machinist and engineers into TVA to ensure the company’s future.
“We can have the money and we can have the plans, but we need those people to generate the power,” said Fielder. “It’s not that people don’t want to do it, it’s just we don’t have the skillset. And that’s the thing that we got to build now.”