This Land, Your Land

By the middle of next year, Jordan Lake should be a source of renewable energy via hydroelectric power generators being installed at the dam near Moncure.

The Corps of Engineers, which administers the B. Everett Jordan Dam and Reservoir, said today the road across the dam would close this week as construction began. The Corps operates a visitor center and picnic area at the dam and allows bank fishing below the spillway.

Installation of two vertical generators on the upstream side of the dam's water intake tower should take up to eight months, the Corps said. Each of the generators contains a 2.2-megawatt turbine.

A private enterprise, the Jordan Hydroelectric Limited Partnership, is installing the generators.

When complete, the project will generate up to 16,900 megawatt hours of green power annually, enough to power more than 1,500 homes.

In 2007, the state legislature required power companies to derive at least 12.5 percent of their energy from a combination of renewable sources and from energy-saving programs by 2021, according to a News & Observer article from 2009 about a hydroelectric firm previously expected to build at Jordan Lake.

Progress Energy, which gets less than 1 percent of its power from renewable energy sources, would buy the power produced at Jordan Lake.

This is the first of several such projects proposed or in process for Wilmington District Corps of Engineers facilities, which include W. Kerr Scott Lake in Wilkes County, Falls Lake in Wake County, and three Locks and Dams on the Cape Fear River, all of which also offer public recreation sites.