The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has issued an order cancelling the preliminary permit issued to FreedomWorks LLC for the proposed 1,000-MW Mt. Storm Pumped Storage Hydro Project.
According to the order issuing the preliminary permit, Mt. Storm would be located near Bismarck in Grant County, West Virginia. It would consist of an existing Mt. Storm Lake as an upper reservoir and as many as two new lower reservoirs, as many as eight 10,000-foot-long by 4-foot-diameter penstocks, two powerhouse containing four turbine-generator units, and a new transmission line connecting to a nearby grid interconnection point. The project would have annual generation of 4,380,000 MWh.
FERC issued the permit on Sept. 4, 2018. As a condition of the preliminary permit, the permittee must submit a progress report at the close of each six-month period from the effective date of the permit. FERC notified the permittee on Sept. 10, 2019, that its Aug. 31, 2019, press report was overdue and the permit would likely be cancelled in 30 days. The permittee did not file a response, so FERC issued its order cancelling the permit on Oct. 21. The preliminary permit is cancelled effective the close of business Nov. 20, 2019.
