4 ms·
Thinking about it, many hydropower schemes are already built as cascades - that could be retrofitted as pumped storage quite easily, if you can interconnect the
by m4rtink 5y ago
Thinking about it, many hydropower schemes are already built as cascades - that could be retrofitted as pumped storage quite easily, if you can interconnect the dams for reasonably cost.
- lazide 5y agoNice info! Did a bit of digging and here is a detailed analysis of such a plan (recent) for the Indus River Valley I ran across. Pretty neat [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352152X21006344 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352152X2...] Edit: According to the paper, it's economically viable when the output power price (post-pumping and running through the turbine again) can be > 2X the price of the hydropower, which with seasonal variation and spikey but 'free' sometimes power, could definitely help. Preferring something like solar over running a turbine could also help. The challenge of course is that many times hydropower is nearly free and available in large quantities, as the dams are also used for flood control, so they either toss large quantities of water over the spillways (wasting it), or run it through a turbine - but they can't NOT move the water.