Baroota Dam

The Baroota Dam is a decommissioned earth-filled embankment dam across the Baroota Creek, located near , on the western edge of the southern Flinders Ranges of South Australia. It was built in 1921 to supply additional water to Port Pirie as part of the Beetaloo Reservoir distribution network. The resultant reservoir, Baroota Reservoir, is no longer used to supply drinking water, but is maintained as an emergency water source in the event that the Morgan-Whyalla pipeline fails. It is also used for a small amount of irrigation.

Overview The earth-filled dam wall is high and long. The resultant reservoir, Baroota Reservoir, has capacity of when full and covers an area of drawn from a catchment area of . The uncontrolled spillway has the capacity of handling flow of .

The reservoir does not fill every year. When completed in 1921, it did not fill to the spillway until 1932. The original spillway was replaced in the mid-1950s and again in 1978.

Proposed pumped hydro storage facility In 2018, Rise Renewables was granted to develop a pumped hydro storage facility using Baroota Reservoir. At the time, the South Australian Government funded the development of several proposals, as South Australia had no pumped hydro storage facilities connected to the grid. If the project is completed, it is expected to provide between with up to eight hours of storage. The proposal would use the Baroota Reservoir as the lower pond and establish a new upper reservoir for water to be pumped and stored. Rise Renewables also has a proposal for a solar farm, called the Bridle Track Solar Project, that could provide electricity to power the pump. In August 2019, the majority stake in the project, held by Rise Renewables, was acquired by UPC Renewables.

Baroota Dam

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