Smith Mountain is a battery energy storage facility with 547.5 MW of EIA-reported nameplate capacity in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, registered as EIA Plant ID 3780. Appalachian Power Company owns and operates the plant. The broader Smith Mountain Project is the largest hydroelectric facility on the American Electric Power system. Commercial operation began in December 1965.
EIA-reported nameplate capacity; other nameplate and seasonal ratings may differ.
Primary generation technology.
Appalachian Power Co · Pittsylvania County · PJM
Smith Mountain is operating.
138 kV · AEP, through Appalachian Power Company
Best-supported operating milestone.
Conventional Hydroelectric, Hydroelectric Pumped Storage
Smith Mountain is operating.
138 kV · AEP, through Appalachian Power Company
Similar plants ranked by technology, capacity, and distance.
Operating generator records and technology attributes reported through EIA-860.
| Generator | Capacity | Technology | Operation | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 66 MW 66 MW summer | Hydroelectric Pumped Storage Water · PS | Dec 1965 | Operating |
| 2 | 150.1 MW 174 MW summer | Conventional Hydroelectric Water · HY | Dec 1965 | Operating |
| 3 | 115.3 MW 106 MW summer | Hydroelectric Pumped Storage Water · PS | Jun 1980 | Operating |
| 4 | 150.1 MW 174 MW summer | Conventional Hydroelectric Water · HY | Feb 1966 | Operating |
| 5 | 66 MW |
Monthly EIA generation history and recent market-resource behavior where linked telemetry is available.
Deterministic links to ERCOT market resources, price records, outage disclosures, queue records, and nearby infrastructure. Candidate joins remain labeled until corroborated.
Source-backed project transactions, agreements, land records, permits, and environmental disclosures. Portfolio and adjacent-project facts remain explicitly scoped.
Parties, market resources, and identifiers tied to this asset, with owner, operator, developer, EPC, compliance provider, and interconnecting entity roles kept separate.
| Largest reported plants | Capacity | State | |
|---|---|---|---|
| John E Amos | |||
Project milestones and public references behind the asset profile.
Appalachian Power filed a preliminary permit with the Federal Power Commission for a planned 60 MW, 200-foot-high dam; later design work expanded the concept into a two-dam, pumped-storage project.
PJM
PJM · Pittsylvania County
Monthly generation is reported through EIA-923. Capacity factor uses the current EIA nameplate capacity and is shown only for complete calendar years.
Portfolio membership follows the latest EIA-860 reporting entity. It does not imply ultimate ownership.
The project’s principal construction was completed in 1963, and the dam gates were closed that year.
EIA-860 lists generator 1, generator 2 with this operating date.
EIA-860 lists generator 4, generator 5 with this operating date.
Smith Mountain Lake reached full pond at 5:03 a.m. on March 7, 1966. Historical project material reports $66 million in total cost for the Smith Mountain and Leesville dams.
EIA-860 lists generator 3 with this operating date.
Appalachian Power filed with FERC for a new license; the existing 50-year license was scheduled to expire in March 2010.
Answered from the published record above. Questions whose inputs this profile does not carry are omitted rather than estimated.
Smith Mountain has a reported capacity of 547.5 MW. Source: EIA Form 860.
Smith Mountain is a Conventional Hydroelectric, Hydroelectric Pumped Storage facility in Pittsylvania County, VA, participating in the PJM market.
Smith Mountain is in Pittsylvania County, VA, inside the PJM balancing area.
Smith Mountain is operated by Appalachian Power Co according to the EIA generator inventory. Reporting membership does not by itself establish ultimate ownership.
Smith Mountain reported -124.9 GWh over the twelve months to 2026-06. Figures are net generation as filed to EIA-923.
Smith Mountain interconnects at Smith Mountain 138 kV Station, on the AEP, through Appalachian Power Company system.
By capacity, Smith Mountain ranks #44 of 1,349 operating plants of the same technology nationally. It ranks #1 of 22 in VA.
Plants within 25 km, nearest first, regardless of technology. Proximity is straight-line distance between mapped plant coordinates; it does not by itself establish a shared point of interconnection.
