The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) announced the grand prize winners in the Furthering Advancements to Shorten Time (FAST) Commissioning for Pumped-Storage Hydropower Prize competition, which aims to help accelerate commissioning times and reduce cost and risk in PSH projects.
The New York Power Authority (NYPA) is moving ahead with its first large-scale energy storage project. NYPA announced it is establishing a 20-MW demonstration facility adjacent to one of its substations in Franklin County. The estimated project cost is almost $30 million, all of which has been approved by the NYPA board of trustees. The Franklin County demonstration site will include a one-hour lithium-ion battery system which can absorb excess power generation for later delivery. NYPA officials say its supports New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s renewable and energy storage mandates, including a goal of 3,000 MW in energy storage capacity by 2030.
In announcing a resource plan Monday, Portland General Electric, the state’s largest electric utility, said investments in energy efficiency, demand management, customer-generated energy, new renewables and energy storage could fill a capacity gap expected to open up in the coming decade — and keep it on a path to hit a greenhouse gas emissions reduction target unveiled last year.
Senator Lisa Murkowski and energy leaders were in Cordova, Alaska over the weekend for the ribbon cutting of Cordova Electric Cooperative's battery energy storage system. Hydropower produces 70% of Cordova's energy, while diesel fills in the gap producing 30% of their energy. In the summers, the fishing industry and processing plants produce a higher demand on the energy grid, and the load goes up and down; the battery will help them cut down the amount of times they have to start and stop the diesel generator in half.
Scientists from General Electric's Global Research Center in Niskayuna recently won a $1.25 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to study the viability of so-called pumped storage hydropower technology that essentially stores up power generated from solar and wind farms for use on the electric grid. The grant, which was awarded by the DOE's Water Power Technologies Office, will be shared by GE Research, GE Energy Consulting and GE Renewable Energy's hydro team.
A Chilean utility has broken ground on a 50 megawatt-hour (MWh) battery energy storage project paired with a run-of-river hydroelectric facility. The battery will be capable of storing electricity produced from the hydro generation without needing to construct a dam or make use of a water reservoir, creating instead a “virtual dam” that can deliver 10 megawatts (MW) of power for 5 hours.
In recent years, 50-60% of Uruguay’s power has been generated from the country’s four hydroelectric dams on the River Uruguay. Most of the remainder comes from renewable energy sources such as solar panels and wind turbines. That combination has turned the country into the world’s poster child for low-carbon energy. The one remaining sticking point is storage. Without it, renewables can only be used as they are generated. Hydro storage provides reliability and flexibility to a renewables-based grid by creating a huge, continuously rechargeable battery that is entirely powered by the elements.
Fortum has started operating a 5 MW/6.2 MWh lithium-ion battery storage system at the Forshuvud hydropower plant in Dalarna, Sweden. It plans to use the storage system to lower the risk of network disturbances, while minimizing what Fortum describes as “wear and tear” on the hydropower facility. The batteries at Forshuvud will compensate for increasingly rapid changes in electricity generation caused by wind power, for example. The system will improve the hydropower plant’s role as a regulator and more effectively take advantage of capacity regulation.
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has turned two big lakes into a monster battery capable of storing enough energy to power tens of thousands of homes. It involves using the excess wind and solar power L.A.'s renewable energy sites produce during the day to pump water from Castaic Lake uphill 7.5 miles to Pyramid Lake. Then, late in the day, when the sun goes down and the city's energy demand spikes, the water gets run downhill through hydroelectric generators at Castaic Lake.
Pumped storage accounts for over 94% of installed global energy storage capacity, rightfully deserving the accolade of being the world’s ‘water battery’. The existing 161,000MW of pumped storage capacity supports power grid stability, with the International Hydropower Association estimating that total storage is in the region of 9000GWh. A recent working paper has been produced to help stimulate timely discussion among policy makers and energy system stakeholders about the increasingly important role of pumped storage in the clean energy transition. The paper provides an assessment of the technology’s current status as well as tracing its historical roots.
The power grid is a pretty complex system. Electricity is generally produced on an as-needed basis. Generators ramp up and down based on demand. However, energy storage systems are beginning to change how demands are being met.
Recent developments to do with pumped hydro, liquid air and kinetic energy storage technology hold out the promise of inexpensive, widely available energy storage. If realized, deployments could be the catalyst that fuels growth of solar, wind and other emissions-free, renewable energy capacity to new, significantly higher, heights, proponents say.
Michigan Technological University is studying whether communities could transform abandoned mines into valuable energy storage. University researchers are partnering with the Marquette County city of Negaunee, population 4,500, on a pilot project that could help mining communities turn liabilities into assets. The prospect is particularly intriguing in the Upper Peninsula, home to hundreds of abandoned metal mines and cripplingly high electricity rates.
The U.S. Department of Energy announced selections for up to $7.5 million for innovations that reduce cost and maximize the value of new stream-reach hydropower development and pumped storage hydropower. Funded projects will develop new design concepts and associated modeling and analysis for standard modular hydropower and pumped storage, respectively. DOE supports technologies consistent with DOE's Advanced Energy Storage Initiative—which drives technology beyond cost reductions toward improved performance and enhanced provision of services to the grid. Selections were made across two topic areas, including scientific analyses that would illustrate how pumped storage hydropower can optimize the performance of the U.S. electric grid system to lower overall system costs.
A recent study suggests that the Earth holds 530,000 potential sites for pumped hydro energy storage. If that sounds too good to be true, well, maybe. The devil is in the details. On the other hand, the number-crunching does indicate that a massive amount of energy storage capacity is already close at hand, even without new technology breakthroughs.
Southwest Virginia lawmakers are looking to pumped-storage hydro and renewables to make the state’s coalfields an energy hotbed again. The General Assembly approved a bill this month to create a state authority that could win grants and other funding to fuel energy technology research and development. The legislation, which still awaits signature by Gov. Northam, carries no funding mechanism but erects a structure for the state to support an array of R&D activities in the coalfields. The legislation specifically names as priorities pumped-storage hydropower — a clear reference to Dominion Energy’s plans to build such a facility — as well as the development of renewable energy generation on brownfield sites, including abandoned mines. The bill also directs the authority to support workforce training and development of a Southwest Virginia Energy Park.
Several remote, off-grid communities in Alaska have adopted energy storage systems as part of their microgrids, as they drive to replace expensive diesel generation with renewable wind and solar power. Now, the small town of Cordova, Alaska, U.S., 150 miles (241 km) southeast of Anchorage, Alaska, is pioneering the integration of a Lithium ion energy storage system into a hydropower microgrid. The aim is to recover lost hydro generation that currently must be spilled during transition periods between hydro-only and combined hydro-diesel generation.
A £20 million ($26m USD) competition has been launched to give a boost to innovative ways of storing electricity, the UK Government has said. It aims to scale up technologies to compete with current storage methods – lithium batteries and pumped hydro. Announcing the competition for innovators, the Business Department said energy storage was the next essential green technology, which would allow the UK to make the most of its growing renewable power sector.
Chief Scientist Alan Finkel says Australia is taking a world-leading position in energy storage – beyond just batteries – and must put the technology at the centre of its own energy transition. The Chief Scientist’s report Taking Charge highlights Australia's rapidly increasing numbers of residential batteries as well as its investment in pumped hydro and other technologies to support renewable power generation, seeing it at the global forefront of the rise of energy storage.
Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe signed 11 bills earlier this week that promote solar and other renewable energy resources such as pumped hydro.The bills include proposals for establishing a community solar pilot project, include energy storage in the mission of the state solar development authority and increase the size of clean energy projects eligible for permit from 100MW to 125MW.
Trying to compare different types of energy storage is a bit like trying to compare the color green to the color blue. Here we take a stab at defining the market potential for long-duration energy storage and offer considerations for potential buyers of this new technology.
As Australia’s renewable energy industry awaits the imminent outcome of the South Australian government’s inaugural large-scale energy storage auction, the CFO of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency has described two of the key competing technologies – large-scale battery systems and pumped hydro – as neck and neck on pricing. Speaking at the 2017 Large-Scale Solar Conference co-hosted by RenewEconomy and Informa in Sydney on Monday, ARENA CFO Ian Kay said projects pairing 100MW of renewable energy generation with 100MWh of energy storage were “about equal” in cost.
Engie Deutschland has awarded a contract to Siemens to install a battery storage unit at its pumped storage hydro power station in Kraftwerksgruppe Pfreimd, Germany. The battery storage will offer additional balancing energy for grid stabilization. The decentral battery storage will complement the existing facilities of the pumped storage power station, which already contributes primary and secondary balancing energy as well as tertiary reserve capacity for a secure energy supply.
The Gordon Butte Pumped Storage Hydro project located in Montana has been issued a 50-year license to construct and operate by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Final design is to be completed in 2017 with construction anticipated to begin in 2018. "This is a tremendous milestone achieved by a world-class team including Barnard, SNC-Lavalin and GE Renewables," said Carl Borgquist, President of Absaroka Energy. "I'm so proud of our team who have worked diligently together to accomplish this significant milestone on the journey to project completion."