2018-12880. Notice of Application Tendered for Filing With the Commission and Soliciting Additional Study Requests and Establishing Procedural Schedule for Relicensing and a Deadline for Submission of Final Amendments: Aquenergy Systems, LLC

Take notice that the following hydroelectric application has been filed with the Commission and is available for public inspection.

a. Type of Application: New Major License.

b. Project No.: 2883-009.

c. Date Filed: May 30, 2018.

d. Applicant: Aquenergy Systems, LLC.

e. Name of Project: Fries Hydroelectric Project.

f. Location: On the New River in the Town of Fries, Grayson County, Virginia. No federal lands are occupied by the project works or located within the project boundary.

g. Filed Pursuant to: Federal Power Act 16 U.S.C. 791(a)-825(r).

h. Applicant Contact: Mr. Kevin Webb, Hydro Licensing Manager, Enel Green Power North America, Inc., 100 Brickstone Square, Suite 300, Andover, MA 01810; [phone].

i. FERC Contact: Nicholas Ettema, [phone] or [e-mail].

j. Cooperating agencies: Federal, state, local, and tribal agencies with jurisdiction and/or special expertise with respect to environmental issues that wish to cooperate in the preparation of the environmental document should follow the instructions for filing such requests described in item l below. Cooperating agencies should note the Commission's policy that agencies that cooperate in the preparation of the environmental document cannot also intervene. See, 94 FERC ¶ 61,076 (2001).

k. Pursuant to section 4.32(b)(7) of 18 CFR of the Commission's regulations, if any resource agency, Indian Tribe, or person believes that an additional scientific study should be conducted in order to form an adequate factual basis for a complete analysis of the application on its merit, the resource agency, Indian Tribe, or person must file a request for a study with the Commission not later than 60 days from the date of filing of the application, and serve a copy of the request on the applicant.

l. Deadline for filing additional study requests and requests for cooperating agency status: July 29, 2018.

The Commission strongly encourages electronic filing. Please file additional study requests and requests for cooperating agency status using the Commission's eFiling system at http://www.ferc.gov/​docs-filing/​efiling.asp. For assistance, please contact FERC Online Support at [e-mail], [phone] (toll free), or [phone] (TTY). In lieu of electronic filing, please send a paper copy to: Secretary, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 888 First Street NE, Washington, DC 20426. The first page of any filing should include docket number P-2883-009.

m. This application is not ready for environmental analysis at this time.

n. The existing Fries Hydroelectric Project (Fries Project) consists of: (1) A 41-foot-high, 610-foot-long rock masonry dam with a 500-foot-long spillway; (2) an 88-acre impoundment at the normal pool elevation (spillway crest elevation) of 2,188.27 feet National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929; (3) an approximately 750-foot-long, 110-foot-wide intake canal with four 15.5-foot-high, 6.5-foot-wide headgates; (4) a canal spillway consisting of 10 stoplog bays totaling 47 feet in length; (5) two 12.5-foot-high, 5.0-foot-wide canal gates; (6) a steel powerhouse that contains a single vertical Kaplan turbine with a capacity of 2.1 megawatts (MW) that discharges into a 180-foot-long, 75-foot-wide, 12-foot-deep tailrace; (7) a masonry powerhouse that contains one vertical and two horizontal Francis turbines with a total capacity of 3.0 MW that discharges into a 180-foot-long, 120-foot-wide, 12-foot-deep tailrace; (8) a 500-foot-long, 450-foot-wide bypassed reach that extends from the toe of the dam to the confluence with the tailraces; (9) a 567-foot-long, 13.2-kilovolt (kV) transmission line that runs from the steel powerhouse to the interconnection point with the grid; (10) a 130-foot-long transmission line that connects the masonry powerhouse to a 5,000 kilovolt-amp step-up transformer and an additional 323-foot-long, 13.2-kV transmission line leading from the transformer to the interconnection point; (11) and appurtenant facilities.

The Fries Project is operated in a run-of-river mode. For the period 2003 through 2016, the average annual generation at the Fries Project was 26,150 megawatt-hours.

o. A copy of the application is available for review at the Commission in the Public Reference Room or may be viewed on the Commission's website at http://www.ferc.gov using the “eLibrary” link. Enter the docket number excluding the last three digits in the docket number field to access the document. For assistance, contact FERC Online Support. A copy is also available for inspection and reproduction at the address in item h above.

You may also register online at http://www.ferc.gov/​docs-filing/​esubscription.asp to be notified via email of new filings and issuances related to this or other pending projects. For assistance, contact FERC Online Support.

p. Procedural schedule and final amendments: The application will be processed according to the following preliminary schedule. Revisions to the schedule will be made as appropriate.

Issue Deficiency Letter (if necessary) August 2018

Request Additional Information August 2018

Issue Acceptance Letter October 2018

Issue Scoping Document 1 for comments November 2018

Request Additional Information (if necessary) January 2019

Issue Scoping Document 2 February 2019

Issue notice of ready for environmental analysis February 2019

Commission issues EA August 2019

Comments on EA September 2019

q. Final amendments to the application must be filed with the Commission no later than 30 days from the issuance date of the notice of ready for environmental analysis.

Dated: June 8, 2018.

Kimberly D. Bose,

Secretary.