TVA wants to cut some of the 2400 jobs in the fossil plant division, according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

TVA spokesman Mike Bradley said the number of staff cuts and when they would occur was yet to be decided. He would not specify the nature of the incentives offered.

"For environmental and economic reasons, we are making some strategic decisions about idling or retiring some of our coal units," Bradley said.

"As we proceed with these idlings across our coal fleet, there are going to be reductions in the number of positions needed."

TVA settled a 12-year dispute with environmental groups and the US Environmental Protection Agency in 2011 by agreeing to retire 18 of its oldest units and investing up to $5 billion on pollution controls.

Times Free reported that TVA had the oldest fleet of coal plants of any major US utility with many of its 59 coal-fired plants dating back to the 1940s.

While TVA has installed air pollution control systems on most of its larger generating units, the newspaper reports there are no scrubbers on about half of the units.

TVA spent $1 billion on scrubbers for the Gallatin coal plant near Nashville in March but is still deciding whether to do the same at a number of other plants.

TVA has agreed to close its oldest units at Widows Creek in Alabama and John Sevier and Johnsonville in Tennessee. The retirement of the units could take as long as four years, a move that angers environmental groups such as the Sierra Club who say that TVA should be forced to do more.

Bradley said TVA was looking for alternative positions for people who may be displaced.

"Even though a lot of these reductions are not scheduled for some time in the future, we wanted to go ahead and put on the table for employees that may be impacted a voluntary reduction-in-force, retirement option," he said.