Pumped hydroelectric energy storage

Rob A

Hey,
Just wanted to get a thread going about this technology and its potential use in Ireland. Whats your views on it? Waste of time or viable solution to load leveling our mass abundance of wind we have in this country. What problems you think would be encountered with it in Ireland. Are other energy storage solutions more suited to Ireland, europe,world and its needs. What ever you have to say about it,let it out.

bnt

I suppose the question is one of capacity: the amount of energy you can store depends on the volume of water and the "head" you build up (its elevation minus some losses). Ireland's current pumped storage facility (Turlough Hill) has a generating capacity of 292MW.

edit: for how long, though? A rough calculation, from the figures on that site, tells me that the system could generate its full 292MW capacity for just over 6 hours - less if we factor in losses in the turbines.

Tails142

The problem with this is that you have to dam and flood valleys for the most part to get your storage. And in this day and age that would be almost impossible to get through - whether it be some influential politician with a holiday home or some crackpot hippy fervently protecting a rare species of snail, there will be almost unassailable opposition to the proposal.

Rob A

Environmental and storage capacity issues are major problems and from what ive read so far all suitable sites for such a facility have been used WORLDWIDE!!! This seems a bit hard to swallow but there are ways around it that deserve further investigation. underground pumped hydro is an alternative which is essentially using an underground void as the lower resevoir. Abondoned mines could be used theoretically, although im not sure such a facility has been constructed. From what i found only one underground phes exists, Dinorwig in the uk. Haven't looked into it yet. Anyone have any thoughts on using storm sewers as the underground resevoir. They are unused most of the time, although it wouldn't be great if the sewer was full of water and a storm came. ha,ha! Saitama storm sewer in japan would be the uber suggestion.

Another thought would be to excavate a hole, use the material to create a hill, build a reservoir on top of the hill and use the hole as the lower reservoir thus increasing your head height, cutting excavation depth and getting use of the excavated material. Theres probably holes(excuse the pun) all over this idea but just a thought i had last night. Any views???

Jonathan

Works well as long as it is done correctly.. and not like this..

Rob A

Wow, that was a serious failure. I'll be showing this one to my forensic engineering lecturer to see what he makes of it. Lucky no one died.