TVA completes acquisition of Magnolia combined cycle plant

The Tennessee Valley Authority has completed the $436 million purchase of the Magnolia Combined Cycle Gas Plant in northern Mississippi from Kelson Limited Partnership.

The Magnolia facility becomes the fourth high efficiency, combined cycle gas plant acquired or signed to a long-term lease by TVA since 2007. A fifth plant being built by TVA at the John Sevier site in East Tennessee is scheduled to come online in 2012.

The deal was approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Aug. 17 and by the TVA board of directors on Aug. 18.

"TVA is working to assemble a diverse portfolio of cleaner, more efficient generating resources at favorable costs for our customers," said Bob Irvin, senior vice president for TVA Strategy & Planning. "At less than half the cost of new construction, the fully permitted Magnolia plant will be a cost-effective addition to the TVA system," Irvin said.

The three-unit natural gas-fired plant is located on a 374-acre site near Ashland, Miss. The plant is inside the TVA territory, is connected to a 500-kilovolt TVA transmission line, and has provided power to TVA from time to time since it began operation in 2003.

Kelson Limited Partnership, a wholly owned subsidiary of Columbia, Md.-based Kelson Energy Inc., has owned the plant since 2005.

The Magnolia plant has a capacity of 968 megawatts, which will make it TVA's largest combined cycle gas plant. These facilities generate electricity from gas turbines as well as from one or more generators powered by steam heated by the turbines' exhaust. They supply intermediate power requirements, which are longer than periods of peak power demand but shorter than continuous, base-load generation.