skip to main content

Data Centers

What Is a Data Center?

A datacenter is a centralized repository, either physical or virtual, for the storage, management, and dissemination of data and information. The facility is used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems.

Wired for Success

The seven-state Tennessee Valley region offers a prime location for enterprise data centers and technology companies. These businesses can take maximum advantage of the area’s major strengths—its competitive electric power rates, excellent reliability and capacity, dual feed capability and business-friendly climate.

TVA Economic Development has contracted with Deloitte Consulting to conduct a site assessment study to identify suitable sites for data centers. The study is broken into two phases. The first phase focused on identifying multi-scale data center sites (as seen in the map below). The second phase is an effort to locate large-scale data center sites with especially robust power capabilities.

Primary Data Center Sites

# McMinnville, Tennessee, Warren County Technical Site McMinnville, Tennessee, Warren County Digital Site Grenada, Mississippi Huntsville, Tennessee Adairville, Kentucky Florence Advantage Site Morristown, Tennessee Nashville, Tennessee Maryville, Tennessee Tullahoma, Tennessee Lenoir City, Tennessee Knoxville Tennessee Oak Ridge, Tennessee Duffield, Virginia Guntersville, Alabama Hartselle, Alabama Fayetteville, Tennessee Jackson, Tennessee Athens, Tennessee Hopkinsville, Tennessee Cookeville, Tennessee Northeast College Site

 

Download printable PDF of map. Get detailed information about data center sites in the Tennessee Valley fast at TVAsites.com and search for “data centers”.

Competitive electric rates

Data centers and technology companies meeting the following criteria may be eligible for TVA’s most competitive rates:

  • Power demand over 1,000 kilowatts
  • Average monthly load factor of 80 percent or higher
  • Listed in an eligible NAICS code

2007 NAICS codes

  • 5182 - Data processing, hosting, and related services, and web search portals
  • 522320 - Financial transactions processing, reserve, and clearinghouse activities
  • 541214 - Payroll services

2002 NAICS code

  • 5181 - Internet service providers

World-class reliability and rates, and expanding capacity

  • TVA’s transmission system ranks in the top 10 percent of U.S. utilities.
  • The system has achieved 99.999 percent reliability every year since 2000, surpassing Tier IV data center standards.
  • TVA is the transmission system reliability coordinator for several neighboring utilities covering parts of 11 states.
  • The North American Electric Reliability Corporation has praised TVA’s culture of reliability.
  • TVA restarted the nation’s first nuclear generating unit to go online in this century at Browns Ferry, Ala., and is in the process of completing a new nuclear unit at Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in Tennessee.
  • TVA's diverse power supply mix includes renewable resources and hydroelectric.

Advantages

  • Robust telecommunications connectivity, including long-haul fiber-optic from multiple carriers
  • Abundant water resources
  • Low business and personal taxation rates
  • Ample supply of well-educated workers from 83 four-year colleges and universities in the Tennessee Valley
  • Located within 500 miles of 75 percent of the U.S. population
  • Convenient access to commercial airports and interstates
  • Low risk of natural disasters

Contact

For more information, contact TVA data center industry specialist Spencer Sessions
Office: 615-232-6160
Cell: 901-832-2141
slsessions@tva.com

Article on TVA data center program

Read a 2011 article in Business Xpansion Journal that highlights TVA's program to promote ready-for-development data center sites.