A bipartisan bill has been signed into law by the US President, Joe Biden, for the 2 GW Arizona utility Salt River Project that gives the green light for construction. The project involves the expansion of its pumped storage projects that are located along the Salt River Reservoir system in Arizona on two potential sites above Apache Lake. The bipartisan bill involves the withdrawal of nearly 6,880 hectares of federal land. This process involves the limiting of public activity of a designated area of federal land by the Secretary of Interior to reserve it for a particular purpose. The SRP project will add a potential 2 GW of energy storage capacity for a 10-hour duration.
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Construction Timeline for the Arizona Salt River Project
The project which would become operational between 2030 and 2033 will increase the project’s current capacity of 265 MW of hydropower across four dams on the Salt River. According to SRP, two of these dams, Horse Mesa and Mormon Flat, have generators capable of reversible pumped hydropower with a capacity of 150MW. When power demand is at its highest, usually evenings and nights, water is released from the upper reservoir through hydropower turbines which produce electricity into the lower reservoir. Once operational, the facility would pump water from Apache Lake to the upper reservoir during the morning and midday when electricity demand is lower and there is excess supply available.
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Project Overview
Location: Salt River Reservoir
Completion date: 2030-2033
Project developers: Salt River Project
Other SRP projects
SRP also recently proposed a plan to build a new 500/230/69 kV substation along with 2-3 miles of new overhead double-circuit 230-kilovolt (kV) transmission lines. Additionally, they want to put up less than one mile of new overhead 500kV transmission lines. Named the South Mountain Transmission Project, it is intended to support anticipated growth and development along Loop 202 in the Laveen area and to strengthen SRP’s overall transmission system reliability.
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