Salt River Project innovative hydro-electric plan advances
The federal government has reserved about 17,000 acres to facilitate the eventual construction of a new dam on the Salt River below Lake Roosevelt.
The Salt River Project continues working on plans to build an additional small, deep reservoir to generate energy on the Salt River below Roosevelt Dam.
The reservoir will allow SRP to pump water back up into Roosevelt Lake when electric use is low and then generate power by running that same water back through the turbines when energy demand is high.
The Biden Administration greenlighted the engineering and environmental studies for the project and essentially reserved 17,000 acres of federal land to support the project. The reserve status of the land will simplify the regulatory process for the dam, lake and support facilities. The lake will have a surface area of about 300 acres, and could be 300 feet deep.
SRP is considering four different options for the project, which could generate 2,000 megawatts of energy. This would exceed the energy output of all its other reservoirs combined. The system could in theory produce enough power to supply between 220,000 and 450,000 homes during the 10 hours it would release energy at peak rates.
Construction could start by 2027 and the facility could come online between 2030 and 2033, according to SRP’s website.
The project dovetails with SRP’s embrace of additional wind and solar projects. Those energy sources produce less greenhouse gas emissions than coal, oil and natural gas; however, they often generate energy only at certain times of the day. This makes them of limited value in meeting some peak demands.
SRP can use the excess solar energy during off-peak hours to pump water from the new, deep reservoir back up into Lake Roosevelt. It can then generate energy by sending the water back into the new reservoir when demand peaks.
The system provides an alternative to battery farms, which can also store wind and solar energy for use at peak periods. Those battery storage systems face extra problems due to China’s domination of battery storage systems and the rare earth elements they require.
SRP has launched several high-profile energy projects this year, including a 300 megawatt solar storage project in Pinal County in partnership with a Danish renewable energy company. The utility also announced a deal with EDP Renewables North America for a 200MW-energy storage plant near Coolidge using Tesla battery technology.
The Trump Administration is in the process of freezing funding for a host of renewable energy projects and tax credits previously approved by Congress during the Biden Administration. It’s unclear how this might affect projects already launched by SRP and other utilities.
The Congressional Budget Office concluded that the already approved reserve of federal land for the project will simplify the regulatory process by giving the Bureau of Reclamation sole jurisdiction over the project.
The new lake in a narrow canyon won’t add any recreational options for boaters and anglers. The water level could change by hundreds of feet each day as water is released to generate power, then pumped back up into Roosevelt depending on energy demand. The rapid changes in water level will also prevent any vegetation from growing on the shoreline, which will limit any value to wildlife.
Currently, all four dams on the Salt River produced about 256 megawatts of hydropower. The single new system will produce 10 times as much energy.
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