Chandler Mountain Project

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The Chandler Mountain Pumped Storage Project is a pumped-water energy storage project which was proposed by Alabama Power Co. for a site on the northeast prominence of Chandler Mountain just north of Steele in St Clair County, and in the area below along Little Canoe Creek extending into Etowah County.

The proposed project would have involved constructing a 526-acre lined "upper reservoir" with a rockfill dam at 1,373 feet above sea level on top of the mountain. The reservoir would have been fed from Lake Neely Henry by reversible pump turbines operating during periods of low energy demand. During periods of high demand, the water would have flowed back down to a 1,090-acre lower reservoir, held by four dams at tributaries to Big Canoe Creek at 683 feet above sea level. The turbines would have had a generation capacity of up to 1,600 megawatts, which would have been fed into the utility's distribution grid by new transmission lines from the pump station.

The storage project would have operated at a net loss of energy, expending morein pumping than could be regained by hydroelectric generation, but Alabama Power promoted the project as a key piece of infrastructure for a more flexible future energy grid, which could accommodate more sources of renewable energy.

Alabama Power filed a preliminary permit application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in July 2021, and a more detailed notification of intent and pre-application document in April 2023. In those applications, the utility noted that Chandler Mountain site had been identified as well-suited for hydro storage in a 1985 study, which was confirmed in a 2010 analysis. If the design and permitting for the project were to have proceed smoothly, construction could have started in 2031 and continued for 5-7 years before going into operation in the mid–late 2030s.

The precise boundaries of the land area that would be acquired for the project were not defined, but it was assumed that many residents and landowners would be forced to move and sell their property. A town hall meeting at the Steele Community Center in 2023 drew dozens of people speaking against the proposal. The FERC hosted "scoping meetings" on July 10, 2023 at the Rainbow City Community Center.

On August 15, 2023, Alabama Public Service Commission president Twinkle Andress Cavanaugh criticized the proposal in a press release, calling it "another unworkable solution being endorsed by out-of-state liberals trying to hijack our energy policy," and promised to oppose the plan, saying "I will never let the climate socialists import their energy fantasies from California." Two days later, Alabama Power announced that it was not moving forward with the project and withdrew its application from the FERC.

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