(KNOXVILLE, TN) – Former Progress Energy CEO Bill Johnson is getting a new job – heading a majority utility concern based in a neighboring state. Multiple sources report that Johnson is being chosen to head the Tennessee Valley Authority, the federal power agency that is one of the south’s biggest electric utilities. The move comes months after Johnson was forced out shortly after a merger with Raleigh based Progress and Charlotte based Duke Energy.

Tom Kilgore, also a former Progress Energy executive who has run TVA for six years, plans to retire at the end of the year. TVA board members reportedly have chosen Johnson after considering more than 70 candidates.

Johnson, 58, was slated to become head of the nation's biggest electricity utility, Duke Energy, in July when Progress merged with it. But Duke's board suddenly replaced Johnson with former Duke CEO Jim Rogers within a day of the merger's closure.

Johnson’s severance package at Duke is estimated at more than $44 million.

TVA is the nation's biggest government utility, with nearly $12 billion in revenues and more than 12,000 employees. But it's also a utility with a full slate of problems to greet the seasoned new CEO. They include problems with multiple nuclear facilities in the southeast.

The TVA board's final board meeting of this year is scheduled next week in Scottsboro, Ala., where Kilgore grew up.

Kilgore's base salary and annual performance incentive totaled nearly $4 million in 2011. He plans to do some farming in retirement, though he has agreed to continue working through any executive transition.

TVA hired the McAuley Firm, a Charlotte, N.C.-based executive search firm, to help find the agency's next CEO.

Johnson joined Progress in 1992 and served in a number of roles before he became chairman and CEO in October 2007. Before joining Progress, Johnson was a partner with the Raleigh, N.C. office of Hunton & Williams, where he specialized in legal representation of utilities.

The board selected Johnson over other candidates for TVA's top job, including several internal candidates.