Though you need less volume if it is only being used for overnight storage rather than long term rainfall storage. For example, to store enough energy to produ

Though you need less volume if it is only being used for overnight storage rather than long term rainfall storage. For example, to store enough energy to produce 1GW for 1 day (~10^5 seconds) with a head of 100m, use Pt=mgh to work out you need to store: m = 10^9.10^5 / (10*100) = 10^11 kg of water. = 10^8 m^3 This is not a big reserviour, being 1/20th of the size of Warragamba dam's reserviour (in Sydney). One valley could provide 20GW for a day. Compare that with demand for where I live: http://www.aemo.com.au/Electricity/Data/Price-and-Demand/Price-and-Demand-Graphs/Current-Trading-Interval-Price-and-Demand-Graph-NSW http://www.aemo.com.au/Electricity/Data/Price-and-Demand/Pri... Peak demand for 7.5M people is 9GW, with an average closer to 7GW. One valley could provide overnight storage for over 20 million people, with first world demands (all of Australia). The limitation is transmission and generating/pumping capacity, rather than storage volume.