Emerging technologies |
Transformational tech
Modular dam designs and artificial intelligence for fish tracking are some of the latest technological advances in the industry
THE SOUTHWEST RESEARCH INSTITUTE (SwRI) in the US has developed a new modular steel buttress dam system that has been designed to help resolve energy storage issues hindering the integration of renewable resources into the energy mix. The m-Pres dam system facilitates the rapid construction of paired reservoir systems for grid-scale energy storage and generation using closed-loop pumped storage hydropower (PSH). It claims to cut dam construction costs by one-third and reduce construction schedules by half. “Pumped storage hydropower accounts for
Above: The Southwest Research Institute in the US has created m-Presa to accelerate the deployment of closed-loop pumped storage hydropower units. Credit: Courtesy of SwRI
approximately 95 percent of all energy storage in the US, and modern PSH plants have a round-trip efficiency approaching 80 percent,” says Dr. Gordon Wittmeyer, a hydrologist in SwRI’s Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Division. “However, only one moderate-sized 40MW PSH plant has been constructed in the past two decades in the US.” SwRI created m-Presa to accelerate the deployment of closed-loop pumped storage hydropower units where both the upper and lower reservoir sites can accommodate circular or rectangular reservoirs on relatively flat terrain, such as caprock mesas with level tops, steep sided slopes, and gently sloped valley floors. The prefabricated structural members are more than 3m high and 3-12m long so they can be
22 | January 2024 |
www.waterpowermagazine.com
trucked to the site using standard or low trailers via the interstate highway system. Structural elements are assembled on-site using common heavy construction equipment to erect the buttress framework, whose face is subsequently clad with cylindrically curved steel plates. Wittmeyer says that three factors currently stand in the way of rapidly deploying PSH: cost to construct, time to construct and potential environmental impacts. However, he claims the new m-Presa system addresses all of these issues. SwRI says that currently cost factors continue
to deter new investment in PSH and include large capital costs (as much as $5000 per kW of installed capacity) and the lack of clear energy storage pricing signals. However the m-Presa design could reduce construction costs to $1500 per kW-installed capacity, making PSH competitive with other long-term energy storage modes. Time to construct reservoirs is a significant cost component as well. It often takes ten years to site, design, construct, and commission a conventional PSH plant at a time when private investors are realising paybacks of ten years or less from subsidised solar and wind farms. Reducing the time between project initiation and revenue generation could make PSH more attractive than other solutions used to manage
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37
