Kentucky River hydroelectric projects get boost with funding from federal government

Three hydroelectric projects on the Kentucky River have been awarded $55.9 million in funding from the federal government.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced the awards Thursday.

The money would go toward construction of hydropower plants in unused lock chambers on the river.

The three projects together are projected to produce enough electricity annually to power 4,800 homes in Madison, Jessamine and Lee counties, according to the federal agency.

“These USDA investments will lower costs for Americans and create good-paying jobs in rural communities for years to come,” Xochitl Torres Small, deputy secretary of the agency, said in announcing the funding.

David Brown Kinloch, an engineer from Louisville, is developing the hydropower plants at Locks 9, 10 and 13.

Lock 14 is in Lee County, where the three forks that form the Kentucky River come together. Lock 10 is between Madison and Clark counties and Lock 9 is between Jessamine and Madison counties.

Brown Kinloch has worked with Berea College on developing hydropower plants in Lee and Estill counties designed to allow the College to offset all its carbon emissions .

Those stations are called run-of-river plants, meaning they use the current from the river to turn turbines in the renovated lock chambers and produce electricity.

The three new plants would operate the same way.

USDA also announced funding of $16.6 million in June for a generating facility at Lock 11 on the river. The four projects together have been earmarked for a total of $72.5 million in federal funding.

The Lock 11 facility will the same size as the projects announced this week, generating 3 megawatts of electricity, Brown Kinloch said.

His company, Appalachian Hydro Associates, is developing the plants with Berea College.

The USDA also announced $6.6 million Thursday for a company to develop a solar array in Allen County.

The money for the projects is part of a program financed by the Inflation Reduction Act, which the Biden Administration pushed with a number of goals , including promoting development of renewable energy.

There were a total of 14 locks and dams built between 1836 and 1917 on the Kentucky River to improve navigation from Eastern and Central Kentucky to the Ohio River, allowing shipment of goods such as coal, timber and agricultural products.

However, railroads and roads ultimately eclipsed the river for transportation.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decommissioned most of the locks more than 30 years ago.