The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) is a nonprofit advocacy group that promotes the use of sustainable energy in the southeastern United States. SACE’s primary focus states are Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
History Beginning in 1979, an informal group of citizens began to question the actions of the Tennessee Valley Authority. By 1985, this had become a formal coalition, and the Tennessee Valley Energy Coalition (TVEC) was founded. It later evolved to the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE). TVEC championed ratepayer protections and tracked the environmental and energy policies of the Tennessee Valley Authority. By the late 1980s, the informal group had started to become a full-time operation, and was formally consulted on a number of major TVA initiatives in the late 1980s onwards. This included the management and financing of nuclear power in Tennessee, including the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant. From the mid-1980s onwards, journalists would frequently use TVEC financial analysis to draw summaries on how TVA policies would likely affect the local energy market and taxpayers. In 1992, TVEC's name changed to Tennessee Valley Energy Reform Coalition (TVERC). In 1993, Stephen A. Smith, SACE's current executive director, became the executive director of TVERC after serving on the board.
In 1999, TVERC was renamed the Southern Alliance For Clean Energy (SACE) as the organization expanded its focus beyond the TVA service area to encompass clean energy efforts with other utility providers in Florida and South Carolina. In 2001, SACE merged with Georgians For Clean Energy, thereby expanding its influence in the Southeast to also include Georgia. The ex-TVA Chairman S. David Freeman joined the SACE Board of Advisors in 2020. SACE's programs have expanded to address multiple issues relating to energy and the environment, such as increasing renewable energy deployment with a focus on solar power programs, the use of electric transportation, reducing reliance on fossil fuel power stations, and addressing climate change. More recently, SACE Executive Director Stephen A. Smith was quoted in the New York Times stating that the Tennessee Valley Authority needed to shift to clean power more quickly, and that a lack of pressure from Washington wasn't helping the situation.
Reducing Reliance on Fossil Fuels SACE has regularly campaigned for the phasing out of fossil fuel power plants. Following completion of TVA's 1995 IRP, TVERC shifted its focus to research on air pollution and efforts to clean up or retire coal-fired power plants. In 1997, TVERC formed the Tennessee Clean Air Task Force. In the early 2000s, SACE participated in national campaigns addressing emissions and pollution from coal-fired power plants, including the Clear the Air Campaign. In 2000, SACE, as part of the Clean Air Task Force, commissioned a study, Out of Sight: Haze in our National Parks, claiming that cleaner air in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park could boost the local tourism-driven economy by up to $300 million. In 2003, SACE joined the Clean Air Task Force’s National Clean Up Diesel Campaign. Several environmental incidents during this period informed the organization’s advocacy. The 2008 Kingston Fossil Plant coal ash spill in Tennessee, the largest industrial spill in U.S. history, drew national attention to coal ash disposal and regulation. Following the spill, Dr. Stephen Smith was asked to provide testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which oversees TVA. at its January 8, 2009, hearing on the coal ash disaster. In his testimony, Smith called for greater regulation of coal ash, increased oversight of TVA’s coal ash impoundments, and for TVA to restart public Integrated Resource Planning in an effort to have TVA retire its fleet of aging coal-fired power plants. SACE continues to advocate against the Tennessee Valley Authority's over-reliance on coal power. In the early 2020s, both short- and long-term energy policy plans suggested the state of Tennessee would begin to reduce its reliance on coal. Part of these plans were for additional gas power stations, but SACE questioned publicly both the logic and reasoning for the use of methane gas as a fuel source. SACE had campaigned for two coal power plants in Tennessee to be replaced by clean energy initiatives, but TVA instead opted for methane gas. In 2026, TVA backtracked on their plans to close the two coal power plants.
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