A venture that may display the conversion of a former coal mine in Bell County, Kentucky, right into a utility-scale 287-MW pumped storage hydroelectric facility has garnered federal backing from the Division of Vitality’s (DOE) Workplace of Clear Vitality Demonstrations (OCED).
Rye Improvement, a pumped storage hydropower developer, on Sept. 25 secured $12.1 million—the primary tranche of an $81 million award—to kick off the primary section of the Lewis Ridge Pumped Storage venture below the Division of Vitality’s (DOE’s) Clear Vitality Demonstration Program on Present and Former Mine Land (CEML).
A Closed-Loop System Able to Producing 605 GWh Yearly
The Lewis Ridge Pumped Storage Mission will make the most of a closed-loop system that includes two synthetic reservoirs at totally different elevations to generate and retailer renewable vitality. This grid-connected system will function by shifting water between the reservoirs to supply electrical energy on demand.
In keeping with a preliminary allow granted by the Federal Vitality Regulatory Fee (FERC) in March 2022, the facility will embody a 5,700-foot-long, 77-foot-high zoned rockfill embankment ring dike surrounding the higher reservoir, which could have a floor space of 30 acres and a storage capability of two,300 acre-feet. A 4,987-foot-long, 20-foot-diameter energy tunnel will channel water from the higher reservoir to a 420-foot-long powerhouse that accommodates 4 54-MW reversible pump generators able to producing a complete of 216 MW. The proposed facility is anticipated to have estimated annual era of 605,000 MWh.
Water will likely be pumped from the decrease reservoir to the higher one when electrical energy demand is low and launched again to generate energy throughout peak durations. The decrease reservoir, spanning 23 acres and holding 2,300 acre-feet of water, will likely be enclosed by a 1,400-foot-long, 100-foot-high zoned rockfill dam and an embankment dike. Moreover, a 1,700-foot-long pipeline related to the Cumberland River will present water for the system’s preliminary filling.
Focusing on Operations in 2031
Since FERC issued Rye a preliminary allow and granted it precedence to file a license utility in 2022, the corporate has moved swiftly. Rye now expects to submit a draft license utility to FERC this fall, with a closing license utility to comply with within the second quarter of 2025. FERC’s choice is anticipated by the second quarter of 2027. Building will kick off thereafter, spanning 2027 to 2031. The ability is anticipated to be operational in 2031.
The Lewis Ridge venture is one in all 5 chosen by the DOE in March 2024 for funding as a part of CEML, which seeks to display the technical and financial viability of unpolluted vitality tasks on mine land throughout the U.S. In whole, this system has allotted $475 million to help renewable vitality initiatives on each present and former mine websites in Arizona, Kentucky, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.
Alongside Lewis Ridge, these tasks embody “Copper Restoration to Assist America’s Home Vitality Provide Chain” in Arizona, a venture that seeks to deploy geothermal and battery storage at copper mines. One other venture, “Decarbonizing Gold Mines in Nevada,” will develop and construct a photo voltaic PV and battery storage system at lively gold mines. “A Mannequin for Transition: Coal-to-Photo voltaic in West Virginia” will convert two coal mines right into a 250-MW photo voltaic PV facility. “Mineral Basin: Coal-to-Photo voltaic in Pennsylvania” will even remodel former coal land right into a 402-MW photo voltaic venture. On Sept. 25, notably, OCED awarded greater than $2 million to the Mineral Basin Photo voltaic Mission, led by Mineral Basin Photo voltaic Energy, LLC, to provoke Part 1 actions of creating a 402-MW photo voltaic PV era facility on a former coal mining web site in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, with a complete federal value share of as much as $90 million.
First U.S. Pumped Storage Hydropower Facility Constructed on Former Coal Mine Land
The Lewis Ridge venture, nonetheless, is particularly vital as a result of it’s poised to turn into the primary pumped storage hydropower facility within the U.S. constructed on former coal mine land.
“Repurposing former mine land with pumped storage hydropower can ship cost-effective, dependable electrical energy to surrounding communities whereas offering backup energy for intermittent renewable vitality,” OCED mentioned. “It might probably additionally enhance air high quality by lowering native reliance on excessive polluting fossil fuel-based peaker vegetation. The venture has the potential to display how conventional vitality communities that powered America for generations can turn into leaders within the clear vitality financial system.”
Below the demonstration’s 12-month-long first section, Lewis Ridge will start work on budgeting, scheduling, allowing, land rights, and FERC licensing. As well as, it can provoke group profit actions, together with persevering with two-way engagement with impacted communities and employees, planning workforce and group agreements, and assessing venture advantages and impacts.
In a latest interview with POWER, Sandy Slayton, vice chairman of Rye Improvement, famous the venture is slated to create 1,500 building jobs, together with “dozens of direct and oblique operational sustainable-wage jobs.”
Slayton famous that the venture web site, positioned close to the city of Pineville, is on personal lands primarily owned by Asher Land and Mineral, the place 5 coal seams intersect the venture space. “The primary data of coal mining are from the Fifties. Since that point, many mining operations have stopped and began; nonetheless, coal extraction has stopped throughout the venture space,” she mentioned.
The venture will likely be pivotal in demonstrating how the U.S. can “breathe new life” into former mining websites with confirmed know-how constructed to final greater than a century, Slayton mentioned. Nevertheless, “At present, the Lewis Ridge Mission is the one pumped storage facility within the U.S. being proposed on former mining lands,” she added. “Rye Improvement is happy to convey pumped storage—the most important, most confirmed vitality storage know-how—to Kentucky, which has an extended legacy of powering the nation.”
—Sonal Patel is a POWER senior editor (@sonalcpatel, @POWERmagazine).
