Construction starts for 200 MW Pumped Hydropower Storage project in USA

Rye Development (Rye) has started the development of the Lewis Ridge Closed Loop Pumped Hydropower Storage project in Bell County, Kentucky.

The 200 MW capacity Lewis Ridge pumped storage project is located adjacent to the Cumberland River near the communities of Blackmont, Tejay, Balkan and Callaway, Kentucky. The project site sits on a former coal strip mine in an active coal mining area. 

Closed loop Pumped-storage facilities are systems that move water between a man-made lower reservoir and a man-made upper reservoir. Water is released from the upper reservoir and used to turn hydroelectric turbines to generate electricity before being collected in the lower reservoir and then returned to the upper reservoir to repeat the process, recycling the same water thousands of times to deploy needed energy to the grid. Pumped storage offers a flexible solution to the changing grid, including the ability to store intermittent solar and wind resources moving forward. 

Rye has filed for a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) permit for the Project. Once the project is completed it will have the ability to generate over 200 MW for 8 hours.