The Tennessee Valley Authority ended the possibility of completing two partially built nuclear units in Alabama on May 5, when its board voted to declare as surplus and for sale the 1,600-acre Bellefonte site. “No large-scale base-load units will be needed for 20 years,” TVA CEO William Johnson told the board. Demand from the federal power producer’s customers set a 20-year record low in December. TVA expects the recently completed 1150-MW unit at Watts Bar,Tenn., to come on line in the summer, he said.

TVA’s board had approved—in 2011, when a long-term plan said the capacity was needed by 2020—completion of one of Bellefonte’s partially built, 1260-MW light-water reactors at an estimated $4.9-billion cost. But the unit was not included in the 2015 plan, which forecast power demand to grow by just 1% a year. Work on the two units—90% and 58% complete, respectively—halted in 1988. “Rather than sitting on [a] site that we might need to develop in about 20 years, we [will] determine a better use for it,” said Sherry Quirk, executive vice president. Developers have shown interest in the site, appraised at $36.4 million, but more environmental review is needed, she noted.