March 26, 2024 - The US Department of Energy (DOE) has announced up to $475 million in funding for five clean energy projects to be deployed on current and former mine land.

The mines are located in Arizona, Kentucky, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia and aim to spur new economic opportunities in mining communities.

The selected projects cover a range of clean energy technologies, from solar, microgrids, and pumped storage hydropower to geothermal and battery energy storage systems.

Three of the five projects are on former Appalachian coal mines, supporting economic revitalisation on land that is no longer viable for industrial purposes.

The five projects selected for award negotiation include:

- Copper recovery to support America’s domestic energy supply chain (Graham and Greenlee Counties, Arizona) – This project seeks to deploy direct-use, geothermal, clean heat combined with a battery energy storage system at two active copper mines in Southeast Arizona, helping decrease the mines’ reliance on onsite thermal backup generators while supporting the annual extraction of 25 million pounds of copper, a critical material, previously considered unrecoverable.

- Lewis Ridge coal-to-pumped storage hydropower project (Bell County, Kentucky) – This project aims to convert former coal mine land to a closed-loop, pumped-storage hydroelectric facility with the potential to dispatch up to eight hours of power when needed.

- Decarbonising gold mines (Elko, Humboldt and Eureka Counties, Nevada) – This project aims to develop a solar photovoltaic facility and accompanying battery energy storage system across three active gold mines in Nevada.

- Mineral Basin: Coal-to-solar (Clearfield County, Pennsylvania) – This project plans to repurpose nearly 2,700 acres of former coal mining land. At 402MW, Mineral Basin will generate enough clean energy to power more than 70,000 homes. This project will increase regional access to clean energy and fill a critical electricity-generation gap following the closure of the Homer City coal plant.

- A model for transition: Coal-to-solar (Nicholas County, West Virginia) – This project plans to repurpose two former coal mines with a utility-scale, 250MW solar PV system that would power approximately 39,000 West Virginia homes. These two inactive mine sites provide land and access to existing energy infrastructure that will transmit the energy the project generates to the grid.

Using mine sites for clean energy projects is attractive as it avoids using previously undisturbed land. Mines are also often located near infrastructure such as electric substations, transmission lines, and access roads, making them ideal places for new developments.

Projects selected for funding have the potential to be replicated and scaled on the millions of acres of current and former US mine land, providing ways for mines to decarbonise operations and minimise environmental impact.

The projects will create over 3000 new jobs and engage with various educational institutions to develop skills and revitalise the local workforce.