AMP, Inc., the supplier for more than 100 municipal power systems, is building hydroelectric power plants on the Ohio River. The projects are the largest new run-of-the-river hydro in the nation.
American Municipal Power has opened the first of four small power plants fueled only by water flowing down the Ohio River.
AMP is the wholesale supplier to 132 municipal power systems in Ohio and eight other states.
In Northeast Ohio, Cleveland Public Power as well as Amherst, Grafton, Newton Falls and Oberlin municipal systems are among the scores of cities in five states that will receive the power.
The four run-of-the-river hydroelectric plants sit on the edge of the river, opposite locks built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for flood control and to help river barge traffic. The Corps continues to manage the dams and locks.
Each of the new plants will briefly divert water that normally flows through the dam gates.
The price tag for the four projects, including the power lines and substations connecting them to the high-voltage grid, is about $2 billion.
Taken together, the projects are the largest new run-of-the-river hydro in the nation. Their combined electrical output, when they all go on-line this, will be more than 300 megawatts (300 million watts) of electricity, around the clock.
That's about the same amount of electricity as a medium-sized coal-burning boiler generates and a little less than half of what a large, modern gas combustion turbine generator can produce. One megawatt can power between 600 and 850 homes.
But these won't burn anything, AMP spokesman Kent Carson notes, and at least in theory, the same water will power all of them as it moves downstream.
The first plant to open, built at the Corps' Willow Island Locks and Dam about 162 miles south of Pittsburgh, on the West Virginia side of the river, began generating electricity earlier this month.
Willow Island will double its output to 35 megawatts (35 million watts) by March, said Carson, when a second generator begins operation.
The other power plants either already built and in final testing or under construction and expected to later in the year are:
- The Meldahl Locks and Dam near Maysville, Kentucky, about 436 miles downstream from Pittsburgh, which AMP is developing in partnership with the city of Hamilton, Ohio.
- The Cannelton Locks and Dam more than 700 miles downstream near Cannelton, Indiana.
- The Smithland Locks and Dam about 60 miles north of the where the Ohio River flows into the Mississippi River. Smithland is still under construction and scheduled to begin operating in late fall.
Marc Gerken, president and CEO of AMP, said the plants will help the company meet federal carbon dioxide emission standards and are part of the non-profit company's commitment to sustainable generation.
How they work:
To get the force necessary to spin a water turbine, the water flowing from the river into the plant's intake gates is channeled into increasingly smaller tubes, said Carson, increasing its velocity and force, enabling it to spin a water turbine that turns the generator. The "spent" water then flows back into the river.
This article was corrected by the author to clarify the construction schedule for the Smithland project, where high water levels have hampered work.