A pumped hydro energy storage station in Ireland’s Wicklow Mountains. (Photo by 4H4 Photography via Shutterstock)
In its bid to make the Winter Olympics “green and clean”, China turned on the world’s largest pumped hydro storage plant.
The $3bn (18.96bn yuan), 3.6GW Fengning Pumped Storage Power Station in Hebei Province will provide 600MW of electricity to the host cities Beijing and Zhangjiakou – avoiding the equivalent of burning 480,000 tonnes of coal a year and reducing CO2 emissions by 1.2 million tonnes.
The Chinese State Grid Corporation opened another five pumped hydro stations last year and plans to increase its pumped storage capacity from the current 26.3GW to 100GW by 2030. All over the world, grid operators are desperately searching for long-duration energy storage solutions to leverage renewable energy as baseload power and address the variable nature of clean resources.
“[Pumped hydro] will play a significant role in supporting the deployment of variable energy sources, as other storage solutions alone cannot provide adequate storage and sufficient grid flexibility,” says François Le Scornet, a senior consultant at Carbonexit Consulting. “The demand for pumped storage can be expected to grow quite significantly over the coming decades.”
Pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) has been in use for more than a century. It involves pumping water from a lower to an upper reservoir when there is spare power generation capacity (on windy or sunny days, for example), and letting it run down to the lower reservoir via a turbine to generate electricity when there is a shortfall – such as at night.
Power grids need to be able to match incoming electricity supply to demand in real time, or they experience shortages or overloads. There are various ways grid operators can do this, including sharing power across large regions via transmission lines and locally via distribution grids, controlling demand (such as providing financial incentives for people to charge their electric vehicles in non-peak hours), and storing energy. For the latter, batteries and PHES have become the options of choice.
“Together, batteries and PHES can completely replace the ancillary services [that help grid operators maintain a reliable electricity system] hitherto provided by fossil and nuclear generators,” says Andrew Blakers, professor of engineering at the Australian National University. Energy Monitor - link - Oliver Gordon - link - more like this (China) - link - more like this ( hydro) - link
The Chinese State Grid Corporation opened another five pumped hydro stations last year and plans to increase its pumped storage capacity from the current 26.3GW to 100GW by 2030. All over the world, grid operators are desperately searching for long-duration energy storage solutions to leverage renewable energy as baseload power and address the variable nature of clean resources.
“[Pumped hydro] will play a significant role in supporting the deployment of variable energy sources, as other storage solutions alone cannot provide adequate storage and sufficient grid flexibility,” says François Le Scornet, a senior consultant at Carbonexit Consulting. “The demand for pumped storage can be expected to grow quite significantly over the coming decades.”
Pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) has been in use for more than a century. It involves pumping water from a lower to an upper reservoir when there is spare power generation capacity (on windy or sunny days, for example), and letting it run down to the lower reservoir via a turbine to generate electricity when there is a shortfall – such as at night.
Power grids need to be able to match incoming electricity supply to demand in real time, or they experience shortages or overloads. There are various ways grid operators can do this, including sharing power across large regions via transmission lines and locally via distribution grids, controlling demand (such as providing financial incentives for people to charge their electric vehicles in non-peak hours), and storing energy. For the latter, batteries and PHES have become the options of choice.
“Together, batteries and PHES can completely replace the ancillary services [that help grid operators maintain a reliable electricity system] hitherto provided by fossil and nuclear generators,” says Andrew Blakers, professor of engineering at the Australian National University. Energy Monitor - link - Oliver Gordon - link - more like this (China) - link - more like this ( hydro) - link
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