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Brief reminder that the predominate means of energy storage is literally pumping water up a mountain to flood a valley. On the surface, it's equally zany soundi
by mNovak 6y ago
Brief reminder that the predominate means of energy storage is literally pumping water up a mountain to flood a valley. On the surface, it's equally zany sounding, but of course the massive storage potential there is the big selling point.
- mc32 6y agoDo you mean actual mechanical pumping or are you confounding the water cycle in this which is what most people would call hydro power?
- dragontamer 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Sta... Pumped Hydro energy storage is the #1 energy storage in America, and probably the world. A single plant provides 24GW-hrs of energy storage, dozens of more energy storage than all American utility scale Li-Ion batteries combined. Bath County is the biggest pumped-hydro battery in the USA (and probably the world), but there are dozens of pumped-hydro plants across the country. ------------ Turns out that all the water in a lake can hold a huge amount of potential energy through gravity: just pump it up a mountain.
- mc32 6y agoThanks for the link and apologies for the skepticism. I didn't know we had systems that basically slosh water from upper to lower during high demand and lower to upper during low demand to even out capacity.
- wtracy 6y agohttps://youtu.be/6Jx_bJgIFhI https://youtu.be/6Jx_bJgIFhI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricit... Actual mechanical pumping.
- Johnythree 6y agoThat's two separate issues. In many existing hydro systems, the turbines are operated in reverse in order to store power.
- core-questions 6y agoSure, if it's all in pipes and if it's pumping into a large volume rather than just river outflow. Sounds good.