A financial backer has been found for a two billion dollar energy storage project in Klamath County.
Swan Lake property owner Lauren Jespersen says the new partnership with the company could take the Swan Lake project from licensing through construction… “Today’s announcement is that the Swan Lake pump storage project has it’s large investor. The large investor is EnXco.”
The Swan Lake hydro project would store energy from wind and solar power. When power is needed, water would be released through turbines from an upper reservoir to a lower reservoir.
The project would be built in the Grizzly Butte area of Swan Lake, northeast of Klamath falls.
But not everyone’s in favor of the project… Tina Young says she’s concerned about the possible impacts on the Swan Lake wetlands, and high voltage power lines: “There are problems with those towers. That’s why they’re so tall, because they’re dangerous. And our property values – our quality of life.”
But backers say the project would provide jobs and money to an area that needs both. Lauren Jespersen says that if all goes well, “Start of construction would be the first quarter of 2014, and if construction goes as planned, we’re looking at 2017 for when the facility becomes operational.”
The project will still need to get a green light from the Federal Energy Regulatory commission.
Jesperson adds that the project would create about 300 construction jobs, and about 50 permanent jobs once the facility is operational.
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