TVA to improve how it tracks new technology, tighten records security

• An unbiased watchdog claims TVA demands to improve its functions.
• The report was issued as TVA races to fulfill ambitious decarbonization objectives.
• TVA is not consistently tracking engineering it adopts, the report claims.
• TVA also is not properly tracking how it saves and secures analysis and advancement info.

As the Tennessee Valley Authority pushes to meet its formidable aims for decarbonization, the authority’s unbiased watchdog is inquiring the nation’s largest general public power business to convey far more willpower to its functions.

Among its vital conclusions, the TVA Place of work of the Inspector General identified TVA needs to boost how it chooses and tracks new systems, these types of as compact modular nuclear reactors, to crank out electrical power for 10 million men and women across Tennessee and elements of six other states, as nicely as industrial and federal facilities.

On top of that, the inspector common warned that TVA is not proficiently tracking what investigation and growth documents it is building, and that data are stored on house and shared drives that could be susceptible to outsiders.

The inspector general’s report, issued Thursday, concentrated on results and suggestions, and includes TVA’s reaction to the report.

What did the watchdog report advocate?

“Around the earlier decade, TVA has commonly adopted commercially readily available, experienced source technologies,” suggests the inspector general’s report. “Nevertheless, as TVA seeks to combine new resource technologies, these kinds of as compact modular reactors, getting constant procedures for evaluating new systems could lower destructive repercussions this sort of as cost, increases, schedule delays, or offering reduce capacity than envisioned.”

The inspector common recommends TVA follows a framework promoted by the Workplace of Authorities Accountability for adopting new technologies and evaluating their hazards and readiness. TVA claimed it now has a selection of approaches in spot for evaluation, but agreed to standardize the system to follow the Office of Governing administration Accountability tips.