A new project that would use water to generate electricity could be coming to Sand Mountain in northeast Alabama.
“It’s going to change everything,” said Shane Groves, a Jackson County resident. “The whole community, the whole geography, everything is going to be different.”
The Tennessee Valley Authority, the federal utility responsible for providing power to millions of people in north Alabama and parts of six other states in the southeast, has proposed a “pumped storage hydropower” facility. The stored hydropower would be used to generate additional electricity in times of high need, like cold winter days and peak summer heat.
The facility could be housed in one of two Alabama locations in Jackson County: Rorex Creek near Pisgah or Widows Creek near Fabius. Or, the utility could decide to expand the existing hydropower facility at Raccoon Mountain in Chattanooga, Tenn.
The utility says it prefers the Rorex Creek option. Scott Fiedler, media relations director for TVA, said that area has been studied before. It’s across the river from the site of the Bellefonte nuclear plant, a planned nuclear power plant that was never completed.
On Thursday, TVA will hold a public meeting on this project at Pisgah High School, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. The utility will decide later this year where to locate the pumped storage hydropower project or whether to do it at all, according to the TVA website.
The proposal is similar to one Alabama Power put forward in 2023, that would have created a pumped storage hydropower facility on Chandler Mountain. Alabama Power — which serves the lower half of the state — withdrew that proposal after outcry from residents that would have been displaced from their homes.
Fiedler said it was unclear how many people would be displaced by the TVA project. It depends on which location is chosen and the ultimate design and scope of the project. But some people will likely have to move, Fiedler said, and that’s why the utility is trying to be as up front as possible.
“We want the public to understand what the project will entail,” Fiedler said. “We live and work here too.”
So how would it work? A reservoir would be built at a higher elevation from the Tennessee River. At night, when energy demand is low, pumps would fill up the reservoir with water. Later, when demand for electricity is high, the water would be released back down into the river.
The water would pass through turbines on the way out, generating electricity for the grid.
“Think of it like a water battery,” said Fiedler.
Pumped storage hydropower is meant to be used when electricity demand is at its highest. The proposed facility would add extra energy storage capacity to the grid to lower the need for extreme measures, like the rolling blackouts during Christmas week in 2022, when the utility’s coverage area experienced single-digit and even sub-zero temperatures.
Both the Pisgah option and the Fabius option in northeast Alabama would generate up to 1,600 megawatts of energy. That’s more energy than most coal or natural gas plants, and about the size of a nuclear power reactor, said Daniel Tait, director of Energy Alabama, a renewable energy policy group.
For context, 1,600 megawatts of energy is equivalent to 1.6 gigawatts. The entire Tennessee Valley Authority system, which serves 10 million people across seven states, has a capacity of a little more than 41 gigawatts.
It’s no surprise that this project comes with a massive price tag: between $2 and $5 billion, according to Fiedler. The cost would be paid for with loans that would be paid off by power sales. Additional funding sources, like grants, could also be considered.
But the system is designed to work forever, Fiedler said. Raccoon Mountain, TVA’s existing pumped storage hydropower facility, has been operational since the 1970s and is still successful 50 years later, he said.
These facilities are designed to work in concert with the utility’s other power sources, like solar power, coal and natural gas power, and nuclear power.
“We want to maximize the pluses and minimize the negatives,” Fiedler said. “We want to be generating the right energy at the right time.”
But others aren’t so sure. Tait said Energy Alabama has not decided whether it will support the proposal. Jack West, special projects director with the Alabama Rivers Alliance, an environmental advocacy group, said it is also still studying the proposal.
Tait said the impact on people would be “orders of magnitude” less than the Chandler Mountain proposal. Energy Alabama and the Alabama Rivers Alliance both opposed that project.
Hydroelectric power, using water to generate electricity, is a “renewable” source of energy. It’s thought of as more climate-friendly than “nonrenewable” energy sources, namely fossil fuels.
That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have an impact on the environment. West said that pumped storage hydropower facilities are net consumers, meaning they ultimately use more energy than they generate. They can also affect the aquatic life nearby, as well as take up existing land, West said.
“Carbon-free energy can have enormous impacts,” West said. “We need clean, renewable energy, but we need to design it in a clean, environmentally sensitive way.”
Groves, who lives in Pisgah, said he’s very concerned about the proposal as he owns property near Rorex Creek.
While his land wouldn’t be directly affected, he said he’s concerned about his property values, as well as a potential breach of the reservoir.
“It’s more of a concern about what’s going to happen,” Groves said. “They can’t guarantee it’s not going to break.”
State Sen. Steve Livingston, R-Scottsboro, who represents the area, told AL.com that almost all of the people he talked to were in support of the idea.
“It would have a huge impact, it would bring a number of jobs and great recreational opportunities,” Livingston said.
Livingston was one of several officials who toured the Raccoon Mountain facility several months ago as part of TVA’s preparation for this facility.
William Stiles, a Scottsboro resident and former Tennessee Valley Authority employee, said he’s all for the project. He says it’s one of the few power plant projects in the U.S. that’s “environmentally friendly.”
“The only drawback I see about the proposed Hydropower Pump Storage Facility is the loss of farmland,” Stiles said in an email. “But it will keep the environment clean and provide many good jobs and plenty of good clean energy, and it doesn’t pollute our environment or damage the Tennessee River.”
Ultimately, the TVA board of directors makes the final decision on which alternative to take and how to fund the project.
The board is appointed by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. As a federal agency, the utility does not answer to Alabama’s Public Service Commission or other state regulators.
It is also possible that the utility decides to take no action. If the board decides to go forward with a pumped storage facility at Rorex Creek in Pisgah, it would take about five to six years to complete, Fiedler said. Around 1,000 jobs would be created during the construction of the plant, and another 60 would be needed once it’s operational.
For his part, Groves said he understands the need for more energy.
“Ultimately, I understand they’re going to need more energy,” he said. “But maybe come up with a better solution to the situation.”
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