Tennessee has 'catching up to do' on solar energy, report says

Among other states in the Southeast, Tennessee trails behind when it comes to solar energy investment. That's in part because of the Tennessee Valley Authority's investment in solar compared to other utilities in the region of about the same size, according to a report by the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, a nonprofit organization that advocates for clean energy policy. The report documents solar energy investments across the Southeast at the utility and state level. While the TVA lags behind other comparable utilities, the report says the TVA showed some progress on solar energy investment in 2025 and coming up in 2026. Over the past three years the TVA has added about 255 megawatts of solar energy per year from 2022 to 2024. That average wattage is expected to grow to 735 for the time range of 2025 to 2027. But one of the report authors said it's unclear if solar investment planned further down the line will come to fruition because of ongoing changes to the TVA board, which currently lacks quorum. President Donald Trump fired three board members earlier this year who were appointed by former President Joe Biden, leaving three other board members at the utility. The nine-member board requires five members for a quorum. Five Trump nominees have yet to be confirmed by the Senate and sworn in. "We do have some confidence that the incremental solar that we're seeing in 2025 and 2026 is tangible progress that's being made by the utility," SACE Senior Energy Policy Manager Heather Pohnan said in a presentation about the report findings. Florida leads the region in terms of solar power investment, in part because of the utility Florida Power and Light's goals for deploying solar power, according to the report. Across the U.S., Tennessee ranks 35th for installed solar capacity. The amount of solar energy that's currently installed in the state can power about 95,000 homes, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade organization for the solar industry. Changes to federal incentives for solar energy may affect future growth of the resource. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act terminated solar tax credits and Solar For All, a $7 billion Environmental Protection Agency grant program to fund residential solar energy access for lower-income households. A spectrum of entities including solar companies, homeowners and labor unions filed a lawsuit over the termination of the program. Solar energy investment across the southeast U.S. is still expected to more than double by 2030, according to the SACE report.