3 ms·
You can't easily turn just any dam to do pumped storage - you essentially need at least 2 dams, pumping from the lower one to the upper one. Normal dam will sim
by m4rtink 5y ago
You can't easily turn just any dam to do pumped storage - you essentially need at least 2 dams, pumping from the lower one to the upper one. Normal dam will simply not have enough water "under" its single dam to pump up when needed.
Not to mention the power transfer to pump water up & down being possibly a big multiple of what a regular hydro plant on that one spot would even need to transfer.
- pfdietz 5y agoOn the other hand, pumped hydro doesn't require the substantial average flow that a hydro generator would need. One build pumped hydro systems where there is no sustained source of surface water flow at all -- for example, in deserts. A proposed pumped hydro facility in Arizona would lose (to evaporation) an order of magnitude less water than a nuclear power plant with capacity = that hydro facility's average throughput.