The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on April 29 granted a Jan. 22 application from Alpine Pacific Utilities LLC for a preliminary permit allowing up to three years of exclusivity to study the feasibility of the Fresno Dam Site Water Power Project.
It would be located in Hill County, Montana, near the town of Kremlin at the existing U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Fresno Dam on the Milk River. The proposed project would utilize the existing outlet structure on Fresno Dam.
The project would consist of these new facilities: a 48-inch-diameter, 100-foot-long bifurcated penstock leading from the existing outlet works; a powerhouse containing two turbines/generating units with a combined installed capacity of 1.348 MW; a tailrace discharging flows into the existing dam spillway; a transformer in a 25-square-foot switchyard; and an approximately 1-mile-long, 12.74-kilovolt overhead transmission line connecting to existing Hill County Electric and Northwest Electric transmission systems. The project would have an average annual generation of 4,700 megawatt-hours.
