Market Signal: the Southeast becomes a BESS market

Tennessee Valley Authority signed a 20-year contract to put a 200MW/800MWh battery in Alabama. Crawfish Creek moves Plus Power from regulatory review into development, its first entry into the Southeast. Plus Power has 1,650MW of operating BESS across Arizona, New Mexico, and Hawaii, none of it in Alabama.

The signal The bottleneck is not the contract or the capital. It is building a Southeast execution team fast enough to meet a hard 2029 COD after a 2028 construction start. The regional knowledge gap closes through hiring, and that takes longer than most developers plan for.

Hiring Project Managers coordinate land acquisition, permitting workflows, and early EPC scoping. Interconnection Specialists navigate TVA's transmission queue. Commissioning Engineers need to be engaged well before the 2028 construction start.