An estimated 122-mile-long natural gas pipeline expansion project that runs through the Upper Cumberland is on pace to be completed next fall.
The Ridgeline Expansion project will run an extension 30-inch pipeline to an existing pipeline to connect Trousdale County to the TVA station in Roane County. Enbridge Project Manager of Stakeholder Engagement Art Haskins said construction has gone well so far since beginning in late October.
“Already doing some blasting, and right-of-way clearing, digging, and entrenching more on the eastern side of the project, Roane and Morgan County,” Haskins said. “And we are doing a compressor station in Trousdale County.”
Haskins said the project started simultaneously on the east and west ends of the project and meet in the middle. Haskins said more work will begin in the Upper Cumberland region over the next couple of months.
“About two weeks behind the tree clearing and grading crew will come the trenching and layout crew,” Haskins said. “Then the pipes will be put out there and welded together and put into place, and it just kind of, you know, the pipeline construction kind of goes as a caterpillar from end to the middle and the other end to the middle.”
Haskins said the purpose of the project is to provide natural gas to serve TVA’s natural gas replacement of the Kingston Fossil Plant.
“They are transitioning from coal in Kingston, electrical generation, to what they call their Kingston Energy Facility,” Haskins said. “There is gonna be some solar there and some new powerlines, as well as using natural gas for their electrical generation in a combined cycle generator.”
Haskins said temporary access roads will be formed and marked as the project progresses. Haskins said the goal is to have pipes installed in September of 2026 and then have the pipeline in service the following month. Haskins said restoration and project cleanup will likely carry over into 2027.