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...probably lots of solar power then, and the excess energy during the day can be used to pump up the remaining water into the hydro reservoir for energy at nig

...probably lots of solar power then, and the excess energy during the day can be used to pump up the remaining water into the hydro reservoir for energy at night. And that's only if they build a hydroelectric dam somewhere where it runs such a risk. They aren't cheap either, and I doubt they'd just build one without careful considerations beforehand.

beerandt 7y ago
1- people like to look at renewables as complimentary to one another. Sometimes it's true, but it's not usually efficient (yet), because you have to significantly over build support infrastructure for a given supply of power. And it's the opposite- you would want hydro to supplement solar or wind (as it's got some on-demand flexiblity) and you could use it to saturate distribution lines when sun/wind is lacking. It takes scaling waaay up to make smart grid load-balancing efficient. Batteries will eventually help this, but they have their own problems that people like to ignore. If you build renewable power generation, but still have to build a backup power plant, the renewables lose a big chunk of efficiency by the very nature of that plants existence (in the form of wasted embedded energy/cost). You could choose to also operate the backup regularly, but then you need to over-build transmission capacity, and you're admitting defeat in needing to operate non-renewables to justify the renewables. As usual, it's complicated. But it doesn't make sense to rely on solar to supplement hydro during a drought. 2-You're talking about hydraulic storage, which is really inefficient, but has some valid use-cases. But drought isn't one of them, for quite a few reasons. If there's a water shortage you want (and are probably treaty bound) to allow that water to flow downstream. By definition, dams were favored in places with irregular rainfall patterns, because in most cases, flood control was the primary use. If applicable, navigation is typically a primary or secondary use. If the area is also dry, irrigation supply is secondary / tertiary use. Power generation is usually last; a happy by-product except in a few cases- with the Manhatten project being the prime example. Sometimes flexiblity allows for on-demand operation, but only after the other use conditions are satisfied (usually during fall draw-down). But even TVA dams operate based primarily on flood control parameters.

beerandt 7y ago

1- people like to look at renewables as complimentary to one another. Sometimes it's true, but it's not usually efficient (yet), because you have to significantly over build support infrastructure for a given supply of power. And it's the opposite- you would want hydro to supplement solar or wind (as it's got some on-demand flexiblity) and you could use it to saturate distribution lines when sun/wind is lacking. It takes scaling waaay up to make smart grid load-balancing efficient. Batteries will eventually help this, but they have their own problems that people like to ignore. If you build renewable power generation, but still have to build a backup power plant, the renewables lose a big chunk of efficiency by the very nature of that plants existence (in the form of wasted embedded energy/cost). You could choose to also operate the backup regularly, but then you need to over-build transmission capacity, and you're admitting defeat in needing to operate non-renewables to justify the renewables. As usual, it's complicated. But it doesn't make sense to rely on solar to supplement hydro during a drought. 2-You're talking about hydraulic storage, which is really inefficient, but has some valid use-cases. But drought isn't one of them, for quite a few reasons. If there's a water shortage you want (and are probably treaty bound) to allow that water to flow downstream. By definition, dams were favored in places with irregular rainfall patterns, because in most cases, flood control was the primary use. If applicable, navigation is typically a primary or secondary use. If the area is also dry, irrigation supply is secondary / tertiary use. Power generation is usually last; a happy by-product except in a few cases- with the Manhatten project being the prime example. Sometimes flexiblity allows for on-demand operation, but only after the other use conditions are satisfied (usually during fall draw-down). But even TVA dams operate based primarily on flood control parameters.