The U.S. is shifting from carbon-based fuels to alternative energy — or green energy – to help fight climate change. In the southern U.S. alone, thousands of megawatts of clean energy are being developed to replace traditional base-load power systems using carbon-based fuels like coal and natural gas.

While green energy is clean and abundant, it’s only available to consumers when there’s sunny skies or wind. This makes it unreliable. Retail and industrial consumers need energy to be continuously available, economical and reliable.

Utility companies currently turn to traditional fossil-fueled power during low green energy availability. This back up supply is provided by gas-fired “peaking stations” constantly running on standby mode.

For example, California has set a target electrical supply balance of 50% clean energy by 2030. The market is working to meet these ambitious goals with implementation of new solar and wind energy facilities. But, this has presented challenges:

First, solar energy suppliers typically reach peak output midday, but consumer demand is later in the day, when solar power efficiency is in rapidly declining. And, wind energy can be variable, based on atmospheric events and difficult to reliably predict on a day-to-day basis.

We have a solution. We’re using pumped hydro power storage at places like Sacaton mine (formerly ASARCO or Casa Grande mine) to store excess green energy and then later provide it to the grid during the peak hours. This lets green energy be shifted into the peak demand periods.

Pumped hydro power storage: Transforming green power into dispatachable, reliable power 365 days per year.

See our investor page for more information.