5 ms·

is this so much cheaper to build than a traditional watertower solution?

• maxerickson 11y ago
  In the US southwest just getting the water would be a big deal. Without looking it up, the good sites are probably in use or under development.
• Osiris30 11y ago
  ...If this works - one of the apparent benefits is scale. Water-tower, and other water-pressure based systems are hard to engineer above 1-10MW (I think).... The benefit of this system is it seems to be able to scale to 100MW+ sizes. Which is what one needs to provide effective frequency regulation, smoothing and backup to a utility-scale solar/wind park. Of course, we don't know what the costs are yet...
• dragontamer 11y ago
  Watertower? Pumped Hydro simply shifts lakes from one location to another with a pipe. You don't build towers, you just use the natural features of the earth.