TVA Kingston Gas Plant Replacement

When the Kingston Fossil Plant fired up in 1955 it was the largest coal-fired station in the world. Its replacement is going up on the same ground.

The Tennessee Valley Authority is building roughly 1,500 MW of gas-fired generation at the Roane County site, a program ENR has valued at about $2.2 billion with the plant itself around $1.8 billion. Construction was about 30% complete as of October 2025 and the plant is scheduled to enter commercial operation by the end of 2027.

Project Scope

The build is two machines in one fence line. A combined-cycle block provides the baseload, and 16 dual-fuel aeroderivative combustion turbines provide the fast-start capacity that a grid absorbing intermittent generation needs. Auxiliary boilers and fuel heaters round out the package. Peak construction employment runs around 1,200; the finished plant needs about 35 operators.

Fuel arrives by a new 122-mile East Tennessee pipeline whose construction began in October 2025 and which is scheduled in service in November 2026. TVA has separately solicited proposals for up to 100 MW of battery storage and 4 MW of solar on the same site, which it has begun calling the Kingston Energy Complex.

Why It Matters

Kingston is not an ordinary retirement. In December 2008 a dike failure at the plant released more than a billion gallons of coal ash slurry into the Emory River, one of the largest industrial spills in American history, and the cleanup ran for years. What gets built on that site carries weight beyond its megawatts.

The engineering question is whether a combined-cycle plant plus aeroderivative peakers is the right shape for a 2027 grid. TVA argues the flexible fleet is what lets it retire coal at all. The Southern Environmental Law Center issued a notice letter on the project on July 20, 2026. Either way, the plant is most of the way built, and the region’s answer to what replaces a 1,398 MW coal station is being poured right now.

Project Team & Details