Ludington pumped storage relicensed

U.S. hydropower regulators have issued a new license for a large pumped storage project in Michigan.

On June 6, 2019, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a new license to utilities Consumers Energy Company and DTE Electric Company to continue operation and maintenance of the Ludington Pumped Storage Hydroelectric Project. The project was originally licensed by the Federal Power Commission on July 30, 1969, for a fifty-year term running through June 30, 2019. The new license follows a 2017 settlement agreement and upgrades to the project facilities.

The Ludington project is located along the eastern shoreline of Lake Michigan; it can store energy by pumping water from the lake uphill into a project reservoir, and then generate up to 1,785 megawatts of energy by sending the stored water back downhill through turbine-generator units. Generation usually occurs during the day when demand is high, with the upper reservoir replenished at night when demand is low to meet the next day’s forecast load. The project can generate at maximum capacity for about 7 hours if the upper reservoir is full, and refilling the upper reservoir takes about 10 hours of pumping at maximum capacity.

Over a year, the project is expected to generate about 2,658,200 megawatt-hours, for sale into the MISO wholesale market. According to the Commission, the average annual project cost would be $215,075,715 or about $80.91/MWh. Since the average annual cost of alternative power would be $253,768,450, or about $95.47/MWh, the Commission asserts that the the project would produce power at a cost of $38,692,735 (or about $14.56/MWh) less than the cost of alternative power.