The Tennessee Valley Authority held a public meeting on Thursday of this week to discuss its long-term power plan. 

The North Georgia Electric Membership Corporation (NGEMC) serves Catoosa, Floyd, Gordon, Murray, Chattooga, Walker and Whitfield counties in northern Georgia. NGEMC has about 98,000 members and maintains more than 6,300 miles of transmission line. NGEMC has served Northwest Georgia, including Chattooga County, since 1936.

At this week’s meeting, TVA Project Manager Reed Hunter said TVA’s best estimate is for an annual growth in electricity demand of 0.8% over the next decade. That is up substantially from the relatively flat growth in power use over the past decade but still less than a third of the robust pace in electricity growth for TVA in the 1990s.

By 2035, TVA also plans to phase out the last of the 59 coal-fired generating units it once operated, and the utility has pledged to become carbon neutral by 2050.