By CHARLIE BOOTHE
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
BLUEFIELD, Va. — A site on East River Mountain in Tazewell County is being considered for a $2 billion pumped hydroelectric storage facility.
Dominion Energy announced Thursday morning that the 4,100-acre site is near Bluefield, Va. and the other possible location for the facility is in an abandoned mine in Wise County.
According to the company, Dominion already owns 2,600 acres on the Tazewell County site.
“We are on parallel paths with performing studies on these two sites,” said Mark D. Mitchell, Dominion Energy’s vice president-general construction. “The FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) application for the Tazewell site will allow us to proceed with the rigorous environmental, geological, archeological and technical studies, while further assessing the economics of the project. In addition, the detailed study on the mine site allows us to explore the feasibility of abandoned mine cavities for pumped hydroelectric storage. We expect to make a decision on which site to advance by mid-2018.”
When power demand is low, the water is pumped back to the upper reservoir. The station is best described as a large-scale rechargeable battery, where power is stored and then released when needed. The “on-demand” nature of pumped storage makes it an appealing resource, adding diversity to Dominion Energy’s generating fleet.
Contact Charles Boothe at [email protected].
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