Canada just activated the world's first underground mine pumped hydro storage facility — converting flooded mine shafts in the Sudbury Basin into a 400-megawatt grid storage system using existing underground voids as reservoirs without any new excavation or surface land disturbance.
The Sudbury Mine Hydro project uses flooded upper levels of the Creighton Mine as an upper reservoir and deep flooded levels 450 meters below as a lower reservoir, installing reversible pump-turbine units in existing mine shaft infrastructure. During surplus Ontario renewable generation, water pumps between flooded levels storing gravitational energy. During peak demand, water rises through turbines generating 400 megawatts for up to 6 hours continuously.
Mine infrastructure including shafts, tunnels, and electrical systems were already in place from decades of nickel mining operations, reducing construction costs to 35 percent of equivalent purpose-built underground pumped hydro. Vale Canada contributed the mine infrastructure in exchange for electricity revenue sharing covering site environmental monitoring.
Source: Ontario Power Generation, Vale Canada Mining, Canadian Electricity Association, 2025
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