A clean energy group that fears the Southeast Energy Exchange Market (SEEM) will stifle renewables is hoping that new appointees to the Tennessee Valley Authority will eventually lead to a more cost-efficient RTO.

The TVA board of directors will soon vote on whether to integrate into the new market. It next meets Feb. 10.

Maggie Shober, research director for the Knoxville, Tenn.-based Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE), said President Biden’s four nominees to the TVA board could shake up the agency’s prevailing opinion on SEEM.

“I think they could take a critical look at SEEM and see if it aligns with their vision and the administration’s vision on what TVA could be and how they could lead the clean energy transition,” she said in an interview with RTO Insider.

However, Shober noted that Biden’s nominees have yet to receive a hearing. All five current TVA board members were appointed by former President Donald Trump. Only Jeff Smith has an energy background.

Shober also noted that two more board seats will open in May, when Smith’s and A.D. Frazier’s terms expire. At that point, the TVA board would dip below quorum.

Shober said SEEM would block independent and small developers’ renewable projects, and its design wouldn’t dictate any changes to utilities’ integrated resource plans.

“The IRP point is important because SEEM will not encourage or prevent any renewable development,” Shober said. “That’s not only likely to not be enough, but it will keep projects uncertain. You have to know that there’s going to be a buyer, and a buyer that is not going to block a project.”

SEEM is set to go live later this year. (See SEEM to Move Ahead, Minus FERC Approval and Panelists: SEEM Can’t Be Southeast’s End Goal.) SACE joined the Sierra Club, the Sustainable FERC Project, the Natural Resources Defense Council and other Southern public interest organizations in opposing SEEM’s creation.

“There are so many question marks about how this will work in practice and not lead to market manipulation,” Shober said, adding that SEEM participants seem to be “trying hard to preserve their business models” while avoiding a new RTO or energy imbalance market.

TVA has a goal to lower its carbon emissions 80% from 2005 levels by 2035; it plans to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

TVA spokesperson Ashton Davies said the federal utility is “committed” to SEEM.

“SEEM will provide an avenue for TVA and neighboring utilities to more easily buy and sell energy intra-hour, including excess renewable energy,” she said in an emailed statement. “This platform aims to lower customer costs and optimize renewable energy resources, which supports TVA’s mission of serving the valley.”

TVA currently operates or contracts more than 1.6 GW of solar power.

Shober’s preferred approach is one where the Southeast and TVA create their own RTO, something she admits is a “long shot.” But she says SEEM might be useful in the long run.

“If there’s anything that comes out of the SEEM development, it’s that the utilities can work together and be constructive with something,” she said.

However, Shober said SEEM will likely derail more efficient and green market designs under consideration in the Southeast that could hasten a clean energy transition.

And she doubts that SEEM can evolve into a more fleshed out market for its participants. “I think the way it’s setting up with an algorithm and no central governance makes it harder to adapt it into something else,” she said.

A Vibrant Clean Energy report last year showed that an RTO design would save the Southeast $119 billion over a SEEM model by 2040. The report also said an RTO would facilitate the utilities’ clean energy goals and create about a million new jobs in the electricity sector.

Shober said she believes SEEM serves to dampen growing interest in a wholesale energy market in the Southeast.

“I think utilities were hoping to quell some of that,” she said. “This is not the kind of savings you’d see under an RTO.”

SACE has said that the SEEM utilities’ savings claims of $40 million annually would, at most, amount to $1/year for residential customers whose utilities are served by the new market.

Shober said TVA’s inclusion will give SEEM a needed east-to-west direction. She pointed out that Associated Electric Cooperative Inc. likely wouldn’t be able to connect with Duke Energy or Southern Co. without TVA’s participation in the new market.

Shober also said documents obtained through a recent request under the Freedom of Information Act from SACE show that TVA — along with Southern and Duke Energy — spearheaded SEEM’s creation as early as last January.

“It’s pretty clear that TVA was involved in developing the SEEM idea from the get,” Shober said.