One of only 28 U.S. hydro plants to receive 'super green,' Low Impact Certification from the Low Impact Hydro Institute, Mother Ann Lee is located on land once owned by the Shakers; it was therefore named in honor of their founder.

Mother Ann Lee is a renovation project — making a retired hydro plant useful again as a source of Kentucky renewable energy. Lock 7 Hydro Partners purchased the retired, 80-year-old plant in December 2005. Renovations began immediately in March 2006.

The plant contains three turbine-generators, each rated at 680 kilowatts, providing a rated output of more than two megawatts. Once renovated, Mother Ann Lee should produce 8.3 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity per year.

Renovation of an 80-year-old hydro plant is expensive and time-consuming. An eight-phase renovation plan is in place to get the plant fully operational, up to its two-megawatt capacity. Phase One is completed; the facility delivers 680 kW of energy capacity from one turbine (one-third of the plant's total capacity) using manual operations. When all eight phases are completed, all three units will be operational and automated.

The timeframe for this complete renovation depends on the Green Energy enrollments of KU and LG&E customers. Whereas the sale of the electricity to Salt River Electric supports the basic operational needs of the plant at its current capacity, the sale of the "attached" Renewable Energy Credits (REC) fund the growth of the plant's energy supply. (See how it works.) Therefore, more renewable energy from Mother Ann Lee will only enter the grid at the rate that it is funded by the Green Energy program.

"The Green Energy dollars will enable us to get more green power on-line faster than we could otherwise," said David Brown Kinloch, President of Lock 7 Hydro Partners. "The output from our plant will grow as more of the renovation is completed, and as the Green Energy program grows."

If demand exceeds supply — that is, if the Green Energy program grows to the point that there are not enough kilowatt hours of Green Energy available from the Mother Ann Lee plant — there are other sources of Green Energy in Kentucky (primarily biomass and landfill energy). If those secondary sources are likewise unavailable, the Green Energy program will be 'sourced' from renewable energy sources in neighboring states.

Therefore, our priority is to source Green Energy from the nearest renewable energy supply in Kentucky. However, if Green Energy is needed from neighboring states, customers can rest assured the following will always be true: for every kilowatt hour of LG&E Green Energy or KU Green Energy purchased, a kilowatt hour of renewable energy will be entering the same regional transmission grid used to supply electricity to KU and LG&E customers.