Yards Creek Generating Station

Yards Creek Generating Station
Country	United States
Location	Blairstown, New Jersey
Coordinates	41°0′2.96″N 75°1′53.60″W
Status	Operational
Owner(s)	REV Renewables
Upper reservoir
Creates	Upper Yards Creek Reservoir
Total capacity	5,013 acre⋅ft (6,183,000 m^3)
Lower reservoir
Creates	Lower Yards Creek Reservoir
Total capacity	5,452 acre⋅ft (6,725,000 m^3)
Power Station
Pump-generators	3 x 140 MW reversible Francis-type
Installed capacity	420 MW
Annual generation	753.7 GWh

Yards Creek Generating Station is a pumped-storage hydroelectric plant in Blairstown and Hardwick Township in Warren County, New Jersey, United States. The facility is owned by REV Renewables, which purchased it from Public Service Enterprise Group and FirstEnergy in 2020 and 2021.[1] It has an installed capacity of 420 MW.

Location

The facility is located in the Delaware Water Gap region of the New Jersey Skylands. When built, the complex stretched into the former Pahaquarry Township. Pahaquarry got its name from the word Pahaquarra, which was a derivation of the Native American word Pahaqualong, which meant "the place between the mountains beside the waters". The township dissolved in 1997, becoming part of Hardwick Township[2]

Operations

Commercial operation began in 1965 and the power station was upgraded in the 1990s. Yards Creek consists of two reservoirs created by earth-fill embankment dams. The upper and lower reservoirs are separated by an elevation of 700 ft (210 m).[3] Water is conveyed between the plant and the Upper Reservoir via an 18-foot (5.5 m) diameter, 1,800-foot (550 m) long exposed steel pipe. At full station load, approximately 4 million gpm of water is released (9000 cfs) 5,800 MGD, Velocity: 35 ft/sec, or 24 miles per hour (39 km/h). The full upper reservoir will last 5.7 hours at Hydraulic Turbine nameplate capacity. The storage facility provides energy regulation and spinning reserve during on-peak hours, and it provides an energy sink off-peak (from 11 P.M. to 7 A.M.) to allow fossil and nuclear plants to remain more fully loaded.[4][5]

See also

• List of power stations in New Jersey
• Great Falls (Passaic River)

References

1. "LS Power becomes sole owner of 420-MW NJ pumped storage facility". www.spglobal.com. Retrieved 2022-09-26.
2. Bewley, Joel. "Lost to merger, a town vanished Tiny Pahaquarry Township gave up in 1997.", The Philadelphia Inquirer, October 23, 2006. access date 2014-12-31 "Pahaquarry, a Lenni-Lenape word that means 'the place between the mountains beside the waters,' rested between the Delaware River and the Kittatinny Ridge.... It lost steam and funding and was finally deauthorized by Congress in 1992."
3. "Jersey Central Power & Light Company And Pseg Fossil, Llc; Notice Of Application Tendered For Filing With The Commission And Establishing Procedural Schedule For Licensing And Deadline For Submission Of Final Amendments". Energy Department, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. 10 March 2011. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
4. Albert, Richard C. (2010), Damming the Delaware: The Rise and Fall of Tocks Island Dam, Penn State Press, ISBN 978-0271046631
5. "Spotlight on pumped storage". Water Power & Dam Construction. 11 August 2011. Retrieved 16 February 2015.