the Taum Sauk plant is notable therein these are a pure pump-back operation – there is no natural primary flow available for generation, unlike virtually all more pumped storage sites. It was among a largest such task once it was built. Construction of the Taum Sauk plant was begun around 1960 and operation began in 1963. Them original reversible pump-turbine units were every capable of getting 175 megawatts of power. It were upgraded inside 1999 to units capable of 225 megawatts each.

the upper reservoir is has a capacity of 4,350 acre-feet (537,000 m³). the upper reservoir is 800 feet (244 m) above a hydroelectric plant, which gives it a greater head than that of Hoover Dam. Them come attached by the 7000 foot (2100 m) burrow through the mountain.

This powerplant occurs as nett consumer of electricity; a laws of thermodynamics dictate that more power is consumed pumping a a water system higher a mountain than is generated whilst it comes down. All a same, a plant might however exist as economic to work – a reservoir is filled whilst asleep when a electrical generation rules is going at baseline capacity, & the power utilized for pump-back would otherwise exist as lost.

That a Taum Sauk reservoir (37d32m10s North, 90d49m05s W) is atop Proffit Mountain & non Taum Sauk Mountain (37d34m13s N, 90d43m40s W) is typically a source of confusion to holidaymaker looking to visit the places. Taum Sauk Mountainside, the greatest point in Missouri, is astir 5 miles (Eight klick) east of Proffit Mountain & hosts the state park, non a reservoir. A reservoir is plainly seeable from either a lookout tower in Taum Sauk Mountain adjacent to the state park. Visitant potty unremarkably cause to a top of Proffit Mountain & hike the ramp to an observation deck at the top of the reservoir. At a entrance gate Ameren likewise operates a museum highlighting the natural history of Missouri. the powerplant is oftentimes visited by geology students because of a striking lesson of Precambrian/Cambrian unconformity in the rock layers studied per plant's construction.

Around June, 2001, Ameren Development Corp, a subsidiary of Ameren Corporation, announced that it experienced filed for a permit from either the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in order to begin evaluating the constructiin of a lot big pump-back plant on neighboring Church Mountain. A upper reservoir of this 77Nought megawatt plant would exist as 130 landed estate (0.Fin klick²), & a moo reservoir would flood 400 landed estate (Ace.Sextet kilometre²) of the scenic & environmentally important Taum Sauk Creek vale. Trend lines from either a total of environmental groups, the Missouri governor's professional, & a state's law office general caused a company to conclude it was impossible to build a plant withinside two an environmentally friendly & prices-cost-efficient manner, & the permit application was withdrawn in August of 2001.