 The Tennessee Valley Authority announced this week that it has contracted for 484 megawatts of solar power in the past two months, part of its push to expand its clean energy portfolio and reduce its reliance on coal power. The awards announced this week, which include one 200-megawatt solar system paired with a 50 megawatts200 megawatt-hour battery system, will increase the TVAs share of solar generation by 44 percent. The seven-state federal power agency gets less than 3 percent of its power from wind and solar today, compared to 39 percent nuclear, 26 percent natural gas, 21 percent coal-fired, and 10 percent hydropower. But TVAs long-range integrated resource plan IRP calls for adding between 1,500 and 8,000 megawatts of solar by 2028, along with up to 2,400 megawatts of energy storage, to serve the utilities and customers it supplies across seven states. By 2038, TVA could see as much as 14 gigawatts of solar on its system, a rate of increase that equates to roughly 700 megawatts per year over the next 20 years. 