{"id":1236,"date":"2022-01-31T20:54:04","date_gmt":"2022-01-31T20:54:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.catcreekenergy.com\/?page_id=1236"},"modified":"2023-04-25T22:55:22","modified_gmt":"2023-04-25T22:55:22","slug":"faqs","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.catcreekenergy.com\/faqs\/","title":{"rendered":"FAQs"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_tta_accordion spacing=”10″ gap=”10″ active_section=”1000″ no_fill=”true” collapsible_all=”true”][vc_tta_section title=”What is Pumped Storage Hydropower?” tab_id=”1648588414539-91dfd552-8224″][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”1370″ img_size=”433×333″ style=”vc_box_shadow” onclick=”link_image”][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”1369″ img_size=”433×333″ style=”vc_box_shadow” onclick=”link_image”][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]Pumped Storage Hydropower plants store potential energy by pumping water to a higher elevation (charging) and releasing it (discharging) through generating turbines to create electricity on demand. Pumped Storage Hydro is the oldest and most widely deployed energy storage technology. The first facility was built in Switzerland in 1908. It is operating today. Beginning in 1930, more than 40 pumped storage plants have been constructed across the United States. The fleet provides more than 90% of the nation\u2019s energy storage, typically designed to supply around eight hours of energy at a time.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][\/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”Why is Energy Storage important to reach decarbonization goals?” tab_id=”1648588414630-3baac710-97a6″][vc_column_text]Today\u2019s consumers and utility regulators demand that low-cost wind and solar energy play an ever-increasing role in our electrical system. Energy storage allows for this clean, but intermittent power, to be available when it is needed. Short-term chemical batteries, for instance, store daytime solar energy for use in the evening, but experts agree that only long duration energy storage (more than four hours) can provide the reliable, at-the-ready resources that soon-to-be-replaced coal and natural gas currently offer.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”What is Pumped Storage Hydropower\u2019s role in the Climate fight?” tab_id=”1648590755187-6f0cba92-d01b”][vc_column_text]Rather than just discharging stored energy, like a chemical battery, Pumped Storage Hydropower mimics the good attributes of traditional large generators.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”How is CCEW different from other Pumped Storage Hydropower plants?” tab_id=”1648590804697-ff07d5f1-ad6b”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”1374″ img_size=”433×333″ style=”vc_box_shadow” onclick=”link_image”][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”1373″ img_size=”433×333″ style=”vc_box_shadow” onclick=”link_image”][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]CCEW repurposes Pumped Storage Hydropower with functionality that surpasses conventional or even adjustable speed PSH.\u00a0 First, the overall facility is designed as a Trybrid\u00a9 power station, designed to use on-and off-site wind and solar energy to power its pumps. Second, owing to its ternary design and hydraulic short-circuit hydro-turbines, CCEW can respond to any energy service the grid operator or load center requires.\u00a0 Third, its Large Volume, Long Duration (\u201cLVLD\u201d) energy storage is designed to charge or discharge instantaneously or even simultaneously.\u00a0 To envision this unusual flexibility, without additional charging, the LVLD system can deliver energy at its maximum hourly capacity of 720 MW, for 5 days (121 continuous hours), or at reduced capacities, but still sufficient to power 90,000 households for 30 days. Unlike batteries, CCEW delivers without concern for the number of cycles over its lifespan, whereas Lithium-ion at 100,000 lifetime cycles and approximately 15 years of service degrades continuously. \u00a0Moreover, CCEW performs in a time-tested way at any level without degradation, attrition, or obsolescence for a century of service.[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]CCEW meets that new demand through hydro-turbine innovation, superior electronics and cyber-security for power modulation and reaction times, all coupled to the impressive Upper Reservoir volume of 100,000 acre-feet, CCEW employs 6\u2013120 MW Voith ternary hydro-turbines, designed and deployed specifically for the capabilities demanded of this Project. The 100,000-acre-foot storage Upper Reservoir with 840 acre-feet of hydrostatic head drives these ternary-design turbines and creates the first of its kind large volume, longest duration energy new storage facility in the nation.[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Contemporary industry research is now just catching up to CCEW\u2019s design choices. The National Renewable Energy Lab reports ternary PSH technology is \u201ca valuable and robust tool for maintaining the reliability and resiliency of the grid as well as integrating increasingly higher penetrations of renewables on to the transmission system<\/em>.\u201d[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][\/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”Why is CCEW\u2019s Water Storage opportunity so important to the Treasure Valley” tab_id=”1648590852709-f5c85d15-b13f”][vc_column_text]Here is the challenge: every climate model for the Pacific Northwest, and southwestern Idaho in particular, predicts increasingly warmer temperatures over the next 50 years, even if global warming can be limited to 1.5 degrees centigrade.\u00a0 As a result, there will be less snowpack (the largest water storage system in the Northwest). Combined with more frequent winter rains, it will melt earlier, the growing season as a result will be lengthened a month on average by the warmer weather, and there will be less irrigation water available later in the season without significant new retention. Paradoxically, the annual average amount of precipitation is forecast to grow around 9% (that\u2019s the projection for the Upper Boise River Basin) so earlier releases that currently cannot be captured, along with harmful earlier seasonal flooding, will become more and more probable. We\u2019ve seen such flooding occur over the past five years in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. The obvious way out of this paradox is to store excess run-off in the Spring, and in the process, mitigate flood damage, and release water later in the Summer when it is much needed for irrigation. CCEW has already signed Memorandums of Understanding (MOU) with forward-looking irrigation districts and municipalities downstream from the Project.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”How is Anderson Ranch Reservoir involved in the project?” tab_id=”1648591070010-3b09ec1e-4ea1″][vc_column_text]As an Off-Stream PSH, Anderson Ranch Reservoir, would serve as the lower reservoir for the pumped-storage facility eliminating the cost and impacts of building a second reservoir. Water used to fill the Upper Reservoir would come from the CCEW water right appropriating otherwise unallocated South Fork Boise River excess run-off. Cat Creek Reservoir water released for beneficial downstream use is subject to replacement to meet energy storage requirements under terms to be negotiated in the Bureau of Reclamation (“USBR”) Lease of Power Privilege (“LOPP”) between CCEW and USBR.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”What are the expected environmental impacts of the project?” tab_id=”1648591096183-8a8db49b-6443″][vc_column_text]In the Pre-application Document (PAD) recently filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission guiding the rigorous NEPA environmental evaluation process that precedes the issuance of a FERC Hydropower License and the USBR LOPP, there is a comprehensive 53-page discussion of potential CCEW impacts, both beneficial and harmful. It surveys the basic ecology of the Project area, identifies the ecological parameters which may need further study, and develops ways in which any potential impacts on key species (in particular sage-grouse and bull trout) can be avoided or best be mitigated. The context for the discussion of potential environmental impacts can be described briefly (the PAD contains much more detail):[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n