| Pumped storage
The problem is we’re not building enough of it.” During his time as Prime Minister of Australia from 2015-18, Turnbull spearheaded the development of pumped storage, specifically the 2000MW Snowy 2.0 scheme. “The penny dropped for me in 2016 when I realised that we had this temporal asymmetry that we were rolling out more and more variable renewables, which you can build very quickly,” he explains, “but a pumped storage scheme takes many years - even if it is fast tracked. That’s why you’ve got to plan ahead now.”
Reports In September 2021 the pumped storage forum held a
panel discussion at the World Hydropower Congress, where its three working groups released a series of final reports. These focused on: ● Policy and market frameworks. This was led by GE Renewable Energy and developed a global position paper to identify the current market and investment barriers and opportunities for pumped storage development, as well as recommendations to de- risk investment.
● Sustainability. Led by EDF, this aims to provide guidance and recommendations on mitigating adverse impacts that may occur in the development of pumped storage to ensure that it can best support the clean energy transition in the most sustainable way.
● Capabilities, costs and innovation. Led by Voith Hydro, this seeks to raise awareness on the role of pumped storage in addressing the needs of future power systems and deepen understanding about its potential. As Malcom Turnbull states: “All the talent of the hydropower world has been brought together to tackle this question of how do we ensure that we give pumped storage the priority and urgency that it needs, to ensure we have a successful transition to a zero emission energy future?” The International Forum on Pumped Storage
Hydropower has put forward seven major recommendations for governments around the world to avert the risk of policymakers and grid operators falling back on fossil fuels to provide clean energy storage. These are: 1. Assess long-term storage needs now, so that the most efficient options, which may take longer to build, are not lost.
2. Ensure consistent, technology neutral comparisons between energy storage and flexibility options.
3. Remunerate providers of essential electricity grid, storage, and flexibility services.
4. Licensing and permitting should take advantage of internationally recognised sustainability tools.
5. Ensure long-term revenue visibility with risk sharing to deliver the lowest overall cost to society.
6. Assess and map for pumped storage hydropower among potential existing hydropower assets and prospective sites.
7. Support and incentivise pumped storage hydropower in green recovery programmes and green finance mechanisms.
United Nations Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance, Mark Carney, says: “I welcome the findings of the international forum and underscoring the need for ambitious solutions to decarbonise at rapid scale.”
From top to bottom:
Thomas Östros, Vice President of the European Investment Bank Uwe Wehnhardt, President and CEO of Voith Hydro
Zheng Sheng’an is the President of the China Renewable Energy Engineering Institute
Pascal Radue, President and CEO of Hydro Solutions at GE Renewable Energy
Kelly Speakes-Backman is the Acting Assistant Secretary at the US Department of Energy, and co-chair of the International Forum on Pumped Storage Hydropower
He believes “there is a central role for pumped
storage” in addressing the climate crisis and that it is the only form of large-scale duration, green energy storage in the world. He adds that it is increasingly important, complements the growth of intermittent renewables and can provide unique services that other batteries cannot. There are “three fundamental drivers to get us to
where we need to go”, Carney says. These include country commitment and policy, mainstreaming of climate finance, and large-scale renewable grids that are fully reliable.
“I do some work with Brookfield Asset Management, and one of the schemes we operate is a 2.1GW pumped storage scheme in the UK,” Carney explains. “With the challenges of power markets over the past few weeks, effectively that market has become islanded. So, the proportion of the power that is provided by intermittent renewables has gone up, and pumped storage activity is at its highest level in over 60 years. “This just provides a bit of visibility of what will happen to other markets as renewable penetration increases,” he continues. “And this is why we need to plan ahead. Pumped storage is capital intensive and that underscores the importance of implementing solution-orientated measures of having credible and predictable government policy so we can build the pumped storage we need to complement rapid scaling of [variable] renewable energy.” Thomas Östros, Vice President of the European Investment Bank, adds: “We stand ready as a bank to support electricity storage through financing and advisory services. Among storage technologies we see pumped storage hydropower as one of the most mature, reliable and versatile large-scale solutions for grid flexibility and security, promoting intermittent renewables in a cost-effective, safe and sustainable manner. In fact, pumped storage hydropower has the potential to remain the most competitive green storage solution at scale over the next decade….We stand ready to be one of the key actors in this field.”
Power of hydro
“It’s clear that we need pumped storage but the point is that very often people don’t understand the technical reasoning behind it,” Uwe Wehnhardt, President and CEO of Voith Hydro says. In his role f
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