Interesting Article on Energy Storage

[DanKegel]

I don't have to check Dan. Got to many friends that work with the Army Corps of Engineers. There is no significant amount of land or rivers to damn up for hydro. It is all built out.

Are you saying that no pumped storage power stations have come online in the US since 1945? If so, you're wrong.

We're talking about pumped storage, not traditional dams.

[J.P.M.]

Google pumped storage hydro electricity. Wikipedia has something on the basics for Dan. Maybe time to euthanize this thread ?

[inetdog]

Hey All,

They are thinking about pumped hyrdo in the Adelaide Hills near Hahndorf, they already pump water from the Murray River into large dams in the Adelaide hills (electricity cost for this pumping 36 million per year), there are a bunch of old gold mines in those hills and there is talk of using the old abandoned mines. Its very early days and it's all very hypothetical at the moment but it would be fresh water and using mines would make it underground avoiding evaporation. Cheers.

In the US, the geology is such that any water pumped into abandoned mines, whether copper, gold, or any other metal, would have a very high probability of becoming so contaminated by leached minerals that you would never be able to return that water to use, but would instead have to keep circulating it back and forth between two reservoirs sealed from ground water contact.

[DanKegel]

A couple folks still seem confused about the Australian study and/or why I brought it up.
Maybe I started the discussion off on the wrong foot.
Yes, pumped storage has been around for a while, is reliable when operated properly, and new pumped storage stations are regularly built. None of that is seriously in dispute.

Let me try again, starting with the abstract from the Australian paper:

We present an energy balance analysis of the Australian National Electricity Market (NEM) in a 100% renewable energy scenario in which wind and photovoltaics (PV) provides 90% of the annual electricity. The key outcome of our modelling is that the additional cost of balancing renewable energy supply with demand on an hourly basis throughout the year is modest: AU$25-30/MWh (US$19-23/MWh).

In our modelling we avoid heroic assumptions about future technology development by only including technology that has already been deployed in large quantities (> 100 Gigawatts), namely PV, wind, high voltage transmission (HVDC, HVAC) and pumped hydro energy storage (PHES). PHES constitutes 97% of worldwide electricity storage but is neglected in many analyses.

This is interesting because many people on this board have asked in effect "Sure, solar is great, but what do you do when the sun goes down?"
This paper answers that question with "Smooth out the sun with good transmission, a good balance between wind and solar, good demand management, and about 14 GW x 28 hours (~400 GWh) of pumped hydro storage." And that, I think, is new and worth mentioning.

There are plenty of questions one could ask about the study. For instance:

"How does this compare to the earlier study, bze.org.au/stationary-energy-plan/ ?"
- That other plan proposed solar thermal storage, which is less well-proven than pumped hydro. It was more detailed, though, and worth a read.

"Is that much pumped storage feasible?"
- It's about 100 of the Taum Sauk station in Missouri (450 MW x 8 hours), or about 260 of the Kidston station being built in Australia (250 MW x 6 hours, genexpower.com.au/the-kidston-pumped-storage-hydro-project-250mw.html ) Doesn't sound crazy offhand -- if there are enough suitable sites.
The group that did the paper is working on an "Atlas of Pumped Hydro Energy Storage" to map out suitable sites, which should help answer the siting question.

etc.

Thanks to SunEagle, bcroe, Pete, GRickard and inetdog for their constructive comments and questions, and thanks to the sceptics who prompted me to try again more clearly.

[Bala]

I live not a long way from kidston, it is in northern Australia. While it will have generally a lot of good clear sunny days from about april through to october,, the months nov, dec, jan, feb are good times for Cylcones ( hurricanes). While it is far enough inland to miss the big winds form these events it is in a good spot to get the tropical low when the system has crossed the coast. They can get there by crossing the coast near Cairns or more likely for kidston coming down from the Gulf of Carpentaria.

So it will be like any farming, most years will be good, but some years there will be some very bad days/weeks for solar harvesting.

[DanKegel]

I there will be some very bad days/weeks for solar harvesting.

Yup... that's why balancing wind, solar, and long-distance transmission is important, and probably why the goal was 90% solar + wind, not 100%.

[solar pete]

In the US, the geology is such that any water pumped into abandoned mines, whether copper, gold, or any other metal, would have a very high probability of becoming so contaminated by leached minerals that you would never be able to return that water to use, but would instead have to keep circulating it back and forth between two reservoirs sealed from ground water contact.

Hey Mate, thats how I imagined it would work, Like a closed loop that would need topping up with water from time to time. It just seems worth thinking about, as SA Water already have most of the major infrastructure in place to do it (if it works) they actually have a few small hydro generators on some of there dams, they have a network of dams and pipe lines that I think could turn them into an electricity generator.with the price of power down here and the amount they spend on electricity pumping water around the joint I figure they should be looking at these options and some big solar projects too

[SunEagle]

Hey Mate, thats how I imagined it would work, Like a closed loop that would need topping up with water from time to time. It just seems worth thinking about, as SA Water already have most of the major infrastructure in place to do it (if it works) they actually have a few small hydro generators on some of there dams, they have a network of dams and pipe lines that I think could turn them into an electricity generator.with the price of power down here and the amount they spend on electricity pumping water around the joint I figure they should be looking at these options and some big solar projects too

Anytime you can capture excess power from an RE producing power generator and put it into a storage system would put you are slightly ahead of the game.

As of now most wind turbines get "turned off" when the "grid" does not need the power they generate which is IMO wasting a lot of power.

Using that power to pump water to reservoirs or to charge batteries would be a better use of the electricity generated.

[J.P.M.]

Google pumped storage hydro electricity. Wikipedia has something on the basics for Dan. Maybe time to euthanize this thread ?

[J.P.M.]

Hey Mate, thats how I imagined it would work, Like a closed loop that would need topping up with water from time to time. It just seems worth thinking about, as SA Water already have most of the major infrastructure in place to do it (if it works) they actually have a few small hydro generators on some of there dams, they have a network of dams and pipe lines that I think could turn them into an electricity generator.with the price of power down here and the amount they spend on electricity pumping water around the joint I figure they should be looking at these options and some big solar projects too

Paying for construction of closed storage large enough to be economically viable, much less getting the engineering right might be tricky. Suitable and limited siting might also severely limit possibilities. Sounds like more "you could do this and POOF, problem solved" stuff from folks with active but unchanneled/undisciplined imaginations and limited practical experience.

[Sunking]

Paying for construction of closed storage large enough to be economically viable, much less getting the engineering right might be tricky.

Now that is some funny stuff JPM. I do not care who you are.

You and I know a Closed Loop System is beyond any practical or economic solution. Only dan fools believe you can make a Closed Loop System out of a lake the size of a city and expect the public to pay for such moronic ideas.

This reminds me of all the billions of dollars wasted on algae fuel/algal biofuel closed loop systems NREL spent. Not to mention it bankrupted three fools named Willy Nelson, Morgan Freeman, and Julia Roberts sinking their cash is a company called Bio-Willy or something like that. Works great if you can afford $20/gal fuel

[Mike90250]

Maybe time to euthanize this thread ?

I think so.