Hiwassee Dam

The Hiwassee Dam, in western North Carolina, was built for flood control on the Hiwassee River in the 1930s by the TVA, and forms a rambling 6,000 acre lake. In the 1950s, the TVA installed a reversible pump-turbine in the existing hydro plant at the dam to test the viability of pumped storage at this scale. The pump-generating unit was capable of producing nearly 60 megawatts, many times larger than previous types. It continues to function, along with additional traditional one-way turbines at the plant, together producing as much as 185 megawatts.