Former Coal Mine Gets a Clean Makeover

A former coal mine in Kentucky is about to be cleaned up.

It will be transformed into a pump storage hydro power facility thanks to a Florida clean energy company.

The Lewis Ridge pumped storage project is the first of its kind, built in the United States, in more than 30 years and the first built on mine land.

Rye Development was one of five organizations that received bipartisan infrastructure law funding as part of the Department of Energy’s clean energy demonstration program on current and former mine land. The facility is using a free resource gravity to produce energy. Essentially, water will be pumped from a lower reservoir to a higher one; when energy demand increases, the water flows downhill turning turbines to generate electricity.

Sandy Slayton, the vice president of Ry Development said of the project, “the Lewis Ridge pumped storage project is not only a significant investment in Kentucky it’s an investment in strengthening our national electric grid. Construction on the $1.3 billion project is slated to begin in 2027 and it’s estimated that it will take 4-5 years to build.