As coal mining comes to end, this East Kentucky land is set to house renewable energy project

As coal continues to be mined at a Bell County site, a portion of the land will become home to a renewable energy project that would provide thousands of jobs and generate electricity for the region.

Rye Development plans to install a pumped hydropower storage project on Lewis Ridge, which is adjacent to the Cumberland River near the communities of Blackmont, Tejay, Balkan and Callaway.

With pumped hydropower storage projects, water is pumped to the upper reservoir and then released to generate electricity as it passes through hydroelectric power turbines into the lower reservoir.

“The challenge with renewables is the wind doesn’t always blow or blows and you don’t necessarily need it, and you have too much of it or not enough of it,” Rye Development vice president Nate Sandvig said. “Solar: you have clouds and night, so you need something that’s dispatchable and dependable to fill in the gaps.”

Developers are beginning a lengthy permitting process with the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Rye Development will also need to raise capital and an energy buyer. Sandvig expects the development process to take four to five years.

“The challenge is they take a while,” he said. “They’re a long lead time project and they require a fair amount of capital upfront but they’re, over the long term, the cheapest form of energy storage and run for decades.”

During the two to three year construction period, the project will employ 2,000 people. The project will employ 40 to 50 people once it’s operational in 2030.

“It’s a good investment that lasts a long time that pays for itself and certainly gives back to the community and creates a lot of jobs when you’re building these projects,” Sandvig said.

Once constructed, the Lewis Ridge project will be able to generate more than 200 megawatts for eight hours, which is enough to power 38,000 homes. Kentucky Utilities transmission lines can be seen from the proposed project site.

Water from the Cumberland River will fill the reservoir and provide water for periodic refills.

It takes about 10% of the energy generated to pump it back up into the upper reservoir, Sandvig said.

The Lewis Ridge project will be the first of its kind for Rye Development, in Kentucky and on a former coal mine land. Across the country in California, a similar pumped storage project is developing on a former iron mine.

The Jackson Mountain property has been mined on and off for the past 60 years. Today, some coal continues to be mined by Nally & Hamilton Enterprises. By the pumped storage project’s completion, mining will be complete. The project, about a 200 acre plot out of a 10,000 acre tract, was reclaimed about 10 years ago.

Michael Gambrel manages the mine site for Asher Land and Mineral in Pineville. Gambrel also worked on the Jackson Mountain property as a mining engineer in the 1980s.

He said as the mining winds down, the community will need the construction and permanent jobs in the future.

“This will be a good thing, because the coal is almost gone from this property and it will not be an idle property when we get this projected permitted and constructed,” he said. “It’ll be real good for the community, the state and the property owner.”

Though coal will no longer be mined, Jackson Mountain will continue to provide energy. The project won’t emit carbon and keeps the grid reliable, along with providing jobs and promoting a continued healthy community, Sandvig said.

This story was originally published March 22, 2022 at 6:00 AM.