Talk:Pumped-storage hydroelectricity

Wikilinked headers
The Manual of Style says not to Wikilink from within headers. Yet that style works here and saves a fair amount of vertical space that would otherwise be wasted by including a lame little sentence under each country's subhead.

Does anyone have any strong feelings about this or, even better, a practical solution that still meets the Style Guide's guidance?

Atlant 19:23, 19 May 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree with the manual of style guidance to avoid linking headings. The linking of country name headings in this article reduces value rather than adds it. I removed the links but the removal was reverted. I did not understand the summary that was given with the revert: "non standard heading formats with spurious = signs". Bobblewik (talk) 23:45, 19 May 2005 (UTC)


 * You used === Countryname == = instead of === Countryname ===. I fixed it. pstudier 01:21, 2005 May 20 (UTC)


 * Aha. So it wasn't 'spurious = signs', it was spurious space characters. Now I understand. Thank you for explaining and for fixing it. Bobblewik (talk) 11:29, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

California Water Project
Several of the California State Water Project reservoirs are used as pumped storage. Their pumps are bidirectional. --Nagle 07:52, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

edits
Edited the first few paragraphs, removed extraneous material, and cleaned up the text somewhat. pes 12/APR/06 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Psandin (talk • contribs) 14:01, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Additional reversible hydropower plants
There are two additional reversible hydropower plants in the former Yugoslavia, RHE Velebit near town Obrovac in Croatia, and CHE Capljina near Capljina in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Both are productive more than 20 years. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.81.246.92 (talk • contribs) 12:13, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Place names in Spain
Just to notice to the page author that I've removed again the name of "Estangento" in order to leave the only and real name of the hydropower station of "Sallente-Estany Gento". Furthermore, the word "Estangento" has no meaning in Catalan nor in Spanish beacause the spanish translation of Estany" isn't "Estan" and "Gento" is the name of the upper lake like "Sallente" is the down one.
 * The above unsigned edit created by User:Xaf-bcn, overwriting a previous unrelated talk page entry, on 23 Sep 2006. Tidied up by WLD 11:12, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * An editor User:Xaf-bcn has taken to renaming some of the pumped storage stations in Spain in Catalan, and removing Castillian Spanish names of the same places. As I understand it, Castillian Spanish is an official language over all of Spanish territory, so at the very least, I would expect both names to be listed, in much the same way as articles involving Welsh place names include the name in both English and Welsh variants. Thoughts, anyone? WLD 11:07, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

HPSP
Could somebody say if Hydropower Pumped Storage Plant abbreaviation HPSP is correct? If yes then I would suggest to make HPSP redirect to this page--DmitriyR 13:47, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Terminology / numbers
Can anyone provide a reasonable breakdown of terminology for some of the numbers? There are both GWh and MW/GW numbers here, and the text is confusing due to this since they nominally refer to the same thing.

Simply to get the discussion going, and provide a baseline for people to beat up on for clarity purposes, I would suggest the following. If these are non-standard terms and there are better ones, by all means. Capacity: generic and to be avoided on this page.

Throughput capacity: the faceplate output of a given source at normal maximum output (peak output may be higher). Measured in watts, i.e. MW and GW. Usually electrical output that can be generated.

Storage capacity: Maximum estimated storage capacity, i.e. how much electrical energy can be stored (in potential) at normal levels of water, and efficiency levels, etc. Measured in watt/hours, i.e. MWh and GWh.

Storage Hours: At maximum throughput, how many hours of operation for the maximum storage capacity.

Annual stored output: How much was fed into the grid in a given year in stored output. Measured in watt/hours. Will be substantially less than storage times throughput if actually used for storage (i.e. surplus).

Annual stored input: how much actually pumped back up, in watt/hours, over a given period.

Storage throughput: faceplate normal maximum input of a source, i.e. pump, back into storage. Measured in watts. May be different from the throughput capacity.

Efficiency ratio: If 100 MWh of electricity consumed to pump water back up, and results in output of 50 MWh, efficiency is 50%. Measured in percent.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Gregalton (talk • contribs) 15:18, 7 November 2006 (UTC)


 * GW/MW and GWh do not nominally refer to the same thing. A watt is a measure of power, a watt-hour is a measure of energy (equal to 3.6kilojoules. Aside from that, I agree. For the list of capacities, it's completely pointless just to list their maximum throughput capacity without also mentioning their storage capacity. It might also be worth mentioning the maximum volume of water in the top dam, and the head height --naught101 (talk) 23:06, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

storing electricity
Is it really correct to say that this is a method of storing electricity? It is actually storing energy that can be converted back to electricity. Also, some other form of energy could be used to pump the water into the upper resevoir.-Crunchy Numbers 19:48, 7 December 2006 (UTC)


 * If we are being precise, then this does not store electricity, it stores energy in the form of potential energy. In the same way, batteries store energy as chemical potential energy. DB DrpBr (talk) 08:10, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Pumped storage is not the most efficient method of storing electricity, but it is the most cost effective (in large amounts). Other methods of storing electricity are batteries, which convert electricity into chemical potential energy, flywheels, which convert electricity into mechanical kinetic energy, and capacitors, which store electricity as electrical charge. The starting point is electricity, and the question is how to store it for later use. 199.125.109.129 01:06, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

nonsense statement
"In 1999 the EU had 32 GWh capacity of pumped storage out of a total of 188 GWh of hydropower and representing 5.5% of total electrical capacity in the EU."

The above statement is nonsense. Eregli bob 10:36, 3 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Why? 32 GWh out of total 188 GWh hydropower and 5,5% of total capacity. --Jklamo 13:02, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Vague parentheticals
There are several parentheticals with unexplained data. Do the numbers 1, 7 and 6 mean the number of turbines? If so, that should be made clear.


 * Nagarjuna Sagar PH, Andhra Pradesh, 810 MW (1 x 110 MW + 7 x 100 MW)
 * Srisailam Left Bank PH, Andhra Pradesh, 900 MW (6 x 150 MW)

Wakablogger2 (talk) 06:54, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Units: Watt vs. Watt-hr
Wouldn't it be more appropriate to list "storage capacity" in Watt-hours rather than Watts? The former is a unit of energy; the latter is a unit of power. You don't store power, you store energy. The maximum power output would be listed in Watts. 131.107.0.73 (talk) 18:04, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I speculate that the reason MW are always given instead of MWHr is that pretty much all purmped storage plants get used in about the same way for daily load levelling - the storage capapcity is always a few hours at full output. The MW size gives you an good idea of the capacity and importance of the plant. Water Power and Dam Construction doesn't give MWhr storage capacity so it's hard to get these numbers. --Wtshymanski (talk) 18:06, 5 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Agree. Watts is not a measure of storage capacity or energy. Units of Energy (like MWh) should be used. Paullb (talk) 12:06, 11 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree with [User:Wtshymanski|Wtshymanski]], the unit you are listening is installed net power and not capacity. Capacity is mostly in GWh or TWh for pumped storage plants and means the total amount of (net) energy when turbining all the residual water in the retaining "vessel".--Cosy-ch (talk) 15:42, 8 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I know it's strange, but in the energy industry "capacity" refers to power measured in watts. So when energy industry folks mean "energy storage capacity," they say "storage capacity" explicitly.

The biggest problem with this generally excellent wikipedia page is the sentence: "... worldwide, representing around 127 GW,[1] with storage capacity at 740 TWh.[citation needed]." Assuming the 127 GW number is right, if the average pumped hydro reservoir could run at full power for 10 hours, that would by just 1.27 TWh, a factor of ~600 less than sited. Perhaps the number is correct but the units should be GWh instead of TWh. John Van Rosendale  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.238.84.237 (talk) 04:28, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Number should be cited. The multi-year Ulla-Førre alone uses 282 GWh of pump energy per year, so 740 GWh worldwide would be way too small. Capacity can mean power or energy, and should be clarified as such in each case. TGCP (talk) 17:58, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

Mass-based energy storage
Could a mass-based energy storage page be made ? Images displaying what this means are the following:

A link in the see also section of this article would also need to be made —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.243.183.41 (talk) 09:42, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Umm, no, WP:NOR says no original research. Also, Wikipedia is not about something you made up in school one day. --Wtshymanski (talk) 18:06, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Possibly. Flywheels and compressed air energy storage would fall under this category. However, I can't think of any other types of devices that would. Also, I'm not sure if pumped hydro, compressed air, and flywheels have enough in common to be described on the same page. Actually, after a bit of looking around, I found this: Energy_storage. Qbert203 (talk) 22:10, 12 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, several manufacturers are allready working out systems.

Examples are Energy Cache and Advanced Rail Energy Storage KVDP (talk) 17:02, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

70% to 85% efficiency?
I know it is cited, but there is no pumped storage facility that get's an 85% cycle efficiency. That number probabbly includes a facility with a natural water source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.128.145.37 (talk) 23:54, 26 February 2010 (UTC)  At the end of the introduction paragraph, it says that the process is about 75% efficient; and it cites a source. I checked the source and found (on page 19 of the cited pdf) that it has a handful of efficiency measurements for both pumps and turbines at different power levels. The overall efficiency of the whole process would be the efficiency of the pump times the efficiency of the turbine. So I averaged the given efficiency values for the pumps and did the same for the turbines, then took the product of those two averages, and came up with about 65%. I will now change the number on the article page to this number. If anybody sees a flaw in my mathematical process, please point it out. Qbert203 (talk) 18:36, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
 * It borders on original research, but on the other hand it is the most comprehensive dataset we have available so far. TGCP (talk) 18:36, 13 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Newest project in Switzerland under construction: a 900MW pumping-storage-power-plant (PSPP) with a bassin for 11.2 Millions cubicmeters is under construction in the alps . They will use modern Vario-Pumps and best-effort Pelton turbines. They give a overall cycle efficiency about 0.80 as calculated value at the operating point of 600 MW (maximum power is 900 MW). please see here.--Cosy-ch (talk) 15:37, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Efficiency numbers are hard to pin down. Some of the losses in the system are dependent on the head of water in the system, which changes as the water moves from one reservoir to the other. A statement from ESKOM (South Africa) says this:
 * "The pump-turbines used in Eskom's two pumped storage schemes at Drakensberg and Palmiet provide average generating and pumping efficiencies of over 90% and total cycle efficiencies of 73,7% at Drakensberg and 77,9% at Palmiet."
 * The maths says there must be some losses not mentioned here, but the numbers support the 70 to 85% number. DB DrpBr (talk) 08:27, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Motivations for pumped hydro (intro)
I removed ''Although the losses of the pumping process makes the plant a net consumer of energy overall, the system increases total energy output to consumers during the cycle on a smaller capital base. Unit costs at all times can be kept lower, since revenue is obtained during periods of peak demand that would be otherwise unavailable. '' for several reasons. It's long winded and I don't understand it. It's also wrong - pumped storage plants cost a great deal of money, as much or more than a hydroelectric generation-only plant. It's wrong, as a pumped storage plant consumes energy and so doesn't increase the energy supply. Finally, it's evasive - no-one builds pumped storage plants for any other reason than to make money for the owners. --Wtshymanski (talk) 01:53, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Now that I look at it, it's also weaselly - 'lower' than what? --Wtshymanski (talk) 01:58, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

I can see the points here, but both the article as it stands and the criticisms enumerated here miss the point. No active energy storage scheme is %100 efficient, and none create energy: nevertheless, storage is an important concern in any "alternative" energy scenario. All that matters here is how the efficiency, and the efficacy, compares to other storage means. Discussion of the overall merits of energy storage vs. energy production do not belong here.2601:9:4680:1160:3C7E:F65:1563:56E2 (talk) 04:47, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Came to see if anyone had discussed adding grid efficiency as a motivation for pumped hydro in the intro. I'm not in the industry, but all (which is not much) I've heard about pumped hydro in the last 5 or so years has been related to smoothing/ofsetting intermittent sources (solar/wind mostly but nuclear historically). I think its role in grid stability is relevant to anyone who would be reading this article. I'm going to carefully add a mention of grid efficiency benefits to the intro Krb19 (talk) 16:40, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Translate Ringwallspeicher
How to translate following term Ringwallspeicher? (see also: Energy Island) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.61.153.79 (talk) 12:48, 9 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Proposal from me= thorus-dam storage

--Cosy-ch (talk) 15:32, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Suggest merge (2011)

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

Wind-hydro station, if merged here, would gain useful background and context that otherwise must be repeated in that article. --Wtshymanski (talk) 04:52, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Why wouldn't it just link here for background? Is it really appropriate to cover hybrid wind stations in the pumped-hydro article?  I don't think so.  Dicklyon (talk) 06:28, 24 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose Wind-hydro station list specific examples of wind-hydro stations, and information about them.  D r e a m Focus  08:23, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose for two reasons. It can be a little difficult to search for but I found a good amount of references to the concept, to mention: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. It is a notable concept and appears to be growing in popularity and scope. Secondly, I think a stand-alone suffices in this case because it does a good job of bridging the two. Instead of mentioning in in both article, each can link to one article. Describing it as wind-hydro integration though may be more suitable than a wind-hydro power station as some research is looking at it on a large scale. There is a mention of it in this article currently, which can be expanded; even into a sub-section.--NortyNort (Holla) 12:59, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose it will only muddy the waters and confuse everyone concerned. IMO WMF articles on complex topics all too often grow like malignant cancers until it is necessary to split them and often the layout by then is unworkable for split. Geofferybard (talk) 23:30, 27 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Support There's almost nothing on wind-hydro stations and even that is tenuous (half of the refs aren't about stations, they're about pumped storage within an overall grid). If mixed-mode stations do become independently notable in the future, they can always be split.
 * It's also worth noting that this whole "ringworld" chaos was yet more work of one recent sock from a prolific disruptive editor. For which they were given the "teamwork" barnstar. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:57, 28 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment. We have similar articles Wind-hydrogen hybrid power system and Wind-diesel hybrid power system, so we probably need more complex approach what to do with this article series. Beagel (talk) 06:12, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Good point, possibly Wind hybrid power systems. Wind is the common denominator and its use is different but I think we can fit them all under one article. Any section that becomes very large can be split. A DAB page if anything.--NortyNort (Holla) 06:42, 3 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Done. Three above-mentioned articles are merged into Wind hybrid power systems. Beagel (talk) 15:52, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Undone. There was no consensus for that merge.  See the above discussion and the one in the AFD.  And how is a wind-hydro renewable environmentally friendly energy source, the same as wind-diesal?  Just using wind in something, doesn't mean it should all go together.   D r e a m Focus  16:03, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
 * If you see above discussion, there was no consensus to merge Wind-hydro station into Pumped-storage hydroelectricity. There was no objection for one and half month to merge these three wind-related articles. Beagel (talk) 18:13, 17 June 2011 (UTC)


 * ''The above discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Modified proposal (2011)

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the merger request was: merge into Wind hybrid power systems. Beagel (talk) 16:30, 15 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Modified proposal. During the previous discussion, there was no consensus to merge Wind-hydro station into Pumped-storage hydroelectricity. However, there was a proposal by NortyNort to merge Wind-hydro hybrid power system, Wind-hydrogen hybrid power system, and Wind-diesel hybrid power system into one article under the name of Wind hybrid power systems. As there was no objection to this proposal, these articles were merged. However, the merger was challenged by one user and therefore the discussion of the modified proposal is re-opened. Beagel (talk) 19:06, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

*Merge. The common nominator of these articles is combining wind power with different storage and generation technologies to balance its intermittent nature. Combining these three articles will give more comprehensive overview and will avoid the potential POVFORK. Beagel (talk) 19:06, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Against The articles are of totally different things. Wind-diesel hybrid power system is about having a common diesel generator kick in whenever there isn't enough wind to make the power needs.  Producing more electricity than you current need with wind power, and using that excess electricity to pump water someplace to let it flow down through a generator and make power later on when you need it to, or storing it in the form of hydrogen produced by running the excess electricity through water molecules and splitting them, are totally different.  The articles are about the facilities and whatnot, not just the process itself.  No sense cramming it altogether in one article, some of it sure to be "trimmed".   D r e a m Focus  20:37, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment. Can't see why they are different if all of them are used to storage/stabilize wind energy. If it done by using pumping storage or hydrogen production, is secondary as non of them is unique only for wind energy. It is incorrect to say that these articles about facilities as pumping storage used in wind hybrid system is the very same pumping storage which is used for storage any other electrical power, and we already have an article about this. The common nominator which establish notability is the hybrid system of storage of wind energy; and therefore to provide complex and comprehensive overview, it would be proper to merge these articles. Beagel (talk) 07:35, 18 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Support per nom and previous comments. Each system may operate differently but they are hybrid systems. I like the better overview and am unsure if any of the articles should be standalone over the other.--NortyNort (Holla) 23:55, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Support merge. The wind-hydro article and the wind-hydrogen articles are quite short at this point,  the wind-diesel article is also rather small apart from the list of installations.  There are also some yet-not written-up-on-WP-AFAICT wind-X hybrids - Wind-compressed air storage, Wind-solar, Wind-solar-battery, Wind-solar-diesel.  Many of those are small-scale or speculative  and they could  be covered in a section here. Stand-alone articles on them, I'm afraid, would have problems surviving an AFD. Dream Focus,  I share your concerns about the possible loss of referenced info - 'trimming' - and that's why I argued keep at wind-hydro AFD - but  don't see that anything was lost during the merge.  (Another sentence in the lead pointing to the various sections - like 'Hybrid systems in operation or under construction include wind-hydro systems, wind-diesel systems, and wind-hydrogen systems',with links to in-article sections, would be helpful). It's interesting, my Google search on wind hybrid systems didn't bring up anything  as comprehensive as this one already is.  So an overview article is an opportunity for WP to serve the general public, and it would be good to have the contents of the existing hybrid articles in here - if they expand they could be summarized here with links to the subarticles. Novickas (talk) 16:13, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

*Comment. This modofoed discussion has been opened for 4 weeks. During this, merger was supported by three editors, while opposed by one editor. During last 25 days the discussion has been inactive. Should we close discussion and go forward with merging these articles? Beagel (talk) 04:14, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree it should.--NortyNort (Holla) 04:41, 15 July 2011 (UTC)


 * ''The above discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Another merge (July 2012)

 * The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Someone tagged Small pumped-storage hydropower for merger with this article last month. --Wtshymanski (talk) 21:20, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Support It's about one paragraph, with minimal discussion and it's not clear "pumped storage hydroelectricity" and "small pumped-storage hydropower" are even distinct topics. They could usefully be combined. --Wtshymanski (talk) 21:20, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Support based on article size and similar subject.--NortyNort (Holla) 18:50, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Support they are the same thing, just different scale. --Ita140188 (talk) 09:31, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose the different scale may allow small pumped hydro to be connected to the distribution grid and so be an actor of the midrogrid / smart grid. But then the "decentralized" aspect of this kind of storage should be described a little further. --Dvthjkr (talk) 14:56, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
 * So why can't there be a section in in the Pumped-storage hydroelectricity article that states this difference? They still both follow the same hydraulic principle.--NortyNort (Holla) 16:47, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

I suggest it would be helpful to put some "teeth" into this merger by citing a more practical small scale example. Whereas the article details the meager storage potential of one cubic meter of water 100M high, such a proposition is absurd upon its face. By contrast, my rough calculations suggest that pumping the contents of an Olympic sized pool (2500m^3 nominal) to a height of 10M above baseline has the potential to store 60KW/h of energy (ignoring losses), plenty to sustain a large home or small business. Many such installations are already hardened against evaporative losses. Although the number of Olympic sized pool installations worldwide may not be very significant, it is nonethless nonzero and, I would suggest provides food for thought. Certainly, where such facilities already exist or are planned, digging a second similar sized hole might represent a very practical alternative to chemical or other storage means on a case-by-case basis. If someone would be so kind as to double-check my math, I would suggest that citing such an example has no downside. 2601:9:4680:1160:3C7E:F65:1563:56E2 (talk) 05:13, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Strong support. Makes sense. Reh  man  05:24, 1 February 2014 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Abreviation
I am not agree with your definition or your choice. Since more than 20 years, the world  is labeling pumped storage power plants as 'PSPP'. Why do you invent other abbreviations, and even don't link to the well known (at least for some "old foxes")?

see here or here (just an example) --Cosy-ch (talk) 15:30, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't know what {The World} says, but "Power Plant" is somewhat misleading as pumped-storage consumes power netto, rather than producing power as most power plants do. Their justification is that they produce less power at a high price and consume more power at a low price, usually creating a net profit despite their energy loss. TGCP (talk) 18:54, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Pumped-storage hydroelectric island
Can the pumped-storage hydroelectric island project be mentioned at the article ? See http://www.dnvkema.com/services/etd/es/large-scale-storage.aspx KVDP (talk) 17:17, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Where is this "island"? At present that scheme is no more of a reality than Dr Blofeld's "hollowed out volcano" scheme, and just as much of a fiction. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:21, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
 * It appears to be a reverse pumped storage technology where the supply reservoir is the sea. I think it is worth mentioning. It is only in the early feasibility stages though.--NortyNort (Holla) 15:11, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Additional columns in chart?
Tetsuo (talk) 13:12, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Height (difference between upper reservoir and turbines)
 * Year built
 * Cost

Recent addition to lead
This week an anonymous editor added this sentence to the lead,
 * Solar power or wind power can also be used to power the pumps which fill these reservoirs.

I reverted this addition but it was re-instated without comment or explanation. While the statement is strictly true, it puts undue weight on renewable energies, as it presents them as the focus of pumped-storage hydroelectricity. I can find no reference (or even statement) in the body to justify this. Either that statement & reference should be added somwehere, or, we should mention that all types of power production (including nuclear and coal, which greatly benefit from high-response production capacity) can be used to pump the water. Let me point out also that snide summary edits ("please read the article again, slowly") are highly unwelcome here. Ariadacapo (talk) 17:43, 5 July 2016 (UTC)


 * As mentioned, earlier, please learn to read. And if you'd like to whine, go somewhere else. The article does mention renewables three or four times, even before the edits. Thank you for your understanding. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.96.107.130 (talk) 13:20, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Problem with section on Underwater reservoirs
The text says "pump water out of the sphere", now I have my doubts about the sphere then being in a state of vacuum and suspect that the water is actually displaced by pumping surface air into the sphere. After reading both references there is no mention of pumping air. Puzzled.Dougmcdonell (talk) 04:20, 30 April 2017 (UTC)
 * This was discussed in detail on reddit's /r/energy when the news broke initially, it is indeed pumping water out to draw a vacuum instead of pumping air in to displace the water (although there was quite a bit of arguing happening over how viable that technique was for numerous reasons and I personally still have significant doubts about the entire project). Garzfoth (talk) 04:24, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Source given for using mines as pumped hydro appears to make no reference to using mines for pumped hydro
I didn't have time to read through the entire source, so I didn't make any edits to the article, but I used ctrl+f to search through the EU report (source 9) for every mention of "pumped hydro" and "mine," and I never found any instance where the report suggested using old mines for pumped hydro. I'm also somewhat skeptical about the viability of converting abandoned mines into pumped hydro facilities — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nodrokov (talk • contribs) 00:26, 19 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Hi. A bit late to the discussion, as the original post was 2017. Currently the Kidston Hydro project in Queensland Australia is being constructed using the two pits of an old mine as upper and lower reservoirs. Some similar projects proposed but not advanced to construction. DB DrpBr (talk) 12:29, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

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Wong Units Used
The pumped storage capacity for each country uses the wrong units. It uses GW which is a rate, not a capacity. It should use GWh.

I am just guessing that most of these storage units will only run for about 4 hours, so the capacity for America should be 84 GWh, rather than 21 GW. .

94.197.9.84 (talk) 12:43, 11 November 2020 (UTC)


 * That is not the storage capacity, it is the installed generation capacity. The units are correct. Maybe better to clarify this point in the table. The energy storage capacity is a much harder figure to find. If you have access to this information you can add it to the article. And you are probably guessing wrong, since most pumped storage power plants can run for more than 4 hours. --Ita140188 (talk) 12:52, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Off river (closed loop) pumped hydro
The article as written has a major problem, namely the fact that 99% of global pumped storage opportunities are not river-based. The global pumped hydro atlas lists 616,000 such sites around the world. Please visit the atlas here.

This has been reported in peer review articles here and here that have 140 citations and 50,000 full text downloads. General articles are here and here that have garnered 500,000 reads.

India and Australia and other countries are building their national storage plans to support solar & wind around the global pumped hydro atlas.

In summary, the world has about 100X more pumped hydro storage potential than needed to support 100% renewable energy. The Wikipedia article needs to reflect this, front and centre. Zolwind (talk) 21:03, 5 June 2023 (UTC)


 * What is the major problem with this article? It never says that these systems are mostly river based as far as I can tell. Nobody disputes that most PSH systems are closed loop. However, I highly doubt that the world has 100x the PSH potential capacity to support 100% renewable energy. Even if the geography allowed (which I don't think it does in most countries), these systems are not suited for the biggest storage need of a 100% renewable energy system, which is seasonal storage. Most of the literature agrees that the only economical way to have seasonal storage is power-to-gas systems. There are very few seasonal storage PSH systems in the world and for a reason: the investment needed to build a storage facility that is cycled only once a year is generally prohibitive. P2G is attractive because the storage medium (underground caverns/depleted gas fields mostly) is a lot cheaper than building water reservoirs thanks to the much higher energy density of the fuel. The much lower investment compensates for the lower efficiency, which is generally under 50% for P2G compared to over 70% for PSH. And there is also the fact that in many countries building new PSH systems is impractical or very expensive, since the best sites are already used (for example, in Italy) --Ita140188 (talk) 08:48, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
 * An up-to-date article on pumped hydro must feature the global pumped hydro atlas, with its 600k sites (23 million GWh) of storage. Its having major impact on perceptions of storage around the world. Suddenly, most countries realize that they have unlimited storage without damming any rivers.
 * There is very extensive peer reviewed literature that only about one day of storage is needed to support 100% renewable energy provided that wide-area transmission (~million km2) is available to smooth out local weather and demand. Seasonal storage is NOT required for the 6.5 billion of the global population that lives at less than 45 degrees of latitude.
 * The global pumped hydro atlas includes sites in the range 2 to 1,500 GWh (1500 GWh is a LOT of storage). Please look at the atlas here, and pan and zoom down to a resolution of 30m for all ~600k sites. Look in your own backyard. Then read the peer reviewed articles here and here. Please do not claim that the geography is wrong in the face of the mountain of evidence in this atlas - which has become a major global planning tool.
 * Australia is the global renewable energy pathfinder, far ahead of the USA on a per capita basis. Australia (population 26 million) has 15 GW of pumped storage under development (equivalent to 200 GW in the USA). None involve new dams on rivers.
 * India: "The Australian National University (ANU) has found about 16,000 off-river sites in India with various storage capacities with many of them located in Himalayan and Non-Himalayan region. Recently in November 2021, MOP [Indian Ministry of Power] has directed all CPSUs to explore the possibility of new PSP in the vicinity of all their existing projects (completed & ongoing) based on the data provided by Australian National University (ANU)."
 * World Bank: "Demetrios Papathanasiou, Global Director of Energy and Extractives “This is the map that the ANU has made for the potential for pumped hydro and the good news is that it appears to be enormous. Now of course each of these sites need to be studied carefully, but from our perspective at least what is quite encouraging is that you see plenty of sites in Africa, a lot of sites in South Asia, a lot of sites in East Asia, a lot of sites in Latin America, and these are of course the countries where we are active in and where we have to work hard to move forward with clean energy transition but the good news is that it appears that we have plenty of sites and it’s a challenge of identifying the right sites, connecting them with the grid and using them as best as we can in the planning of clean energy transition.”
 * Italy: is not short of sites - it has 2300 sites with 64,000 GWh of storage.
 * P2G is in addition to, not instead of, batteries and pumped hydro. Its not one or the other. Zolwind (talk) 09:36, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I would be curious to see these peer reviewed work saying seasonal storage is not needed. Considering that my academic work since PhD has been mostly focused on this, it sounds really curious to me that I have never heard of it. As for the fact that more PHS capacity can be built, this is nothing new. The problem is always cost and public acceptance. If you look at the actual proposals in the atlas on where to build these huge reservoirs you will soon notice how impractical it would be to build even 1% of these (millions of people should be relocated, enormous areas should be flooded, build costs would be enormous). By the same logic, we could also build the same amount of capacity with batteries, the problem again is always the cost. At least batteries are more compact. By the way, in most countries the daily storage need can be covered by charging BEVs alone, assuming all road transport is electrified. So the problem is really not daily storage, it's medium-long term storage (weekly or more) and especially seasonal storage, which is actually necessary in most locations (unless you are willing to overbuild solar and wind capacity to the extreme and have astronomical curtailment levels). As for the transmission lines smoothing local weather, this really does not help with seasons, which is why seasonal storage is so hard. Unless of course you are talking of building transmissions lines across hemispheres which sounds a lot less practical than P2G. Ita140188 (talk) 12:25, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
 * 1) One day of storage is sufficient for most places. Peer reviewed papers here and here and here and here and here. Breyer (Lut), Jacobson (Stanford) and others also conclude that not much seasonal storage is needed. Curtailment is 10-30%. Look at what is happening in Australia: physically isolated, far ahead of USA in per capita solar/wind, headed for 80-90% renewable electricity by 2030, zero plans for seasonal storage, lots of plans to strengthen interstate transmission, zero plans for intercontinental transmission.
 * 2) Do the E=mgh calculation (eg 20m deep, 600m head) to work out that flooded areas are small. Click on the reservoir area in the atlas, and also on the tunnel route, to get detailed information about areas, heads, rock volume of the dam walls etc. The redder the dot the better the site.
 * 3) Storage requirements to support 100% renewable electricity are around 1 GW power + 25 GWh energy per million people for most affluent regions of the world. That amounts to about 3 m2 per person of flooded area. That compares with 30-50m2 for the solar panels that the pumped hydro supports. With 100X more than needed, we can find sites with low social pushback - especially because no new dams on rivers.
 * 4) USA has 35,000 good sites, needs a few dozen, can be very choosy. Yes, car batteries are also helpful. Its not either/or, its both. Solar+wind in USA and EU coupled with strong north-south transmission works well. Southern winter sun goes north and North Sea / Canadian wind goes south. Do the hour-by-hour anlaysis over a decade and see for yourself. Zolwind (talk) 19:46, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
 * 1. First paper only suggest that seasonal storage is less important in sunbelt countries, which excludes all of Europe for example. This without any evidence. Australia is the exception rather than the norm, with virtually unlimited area with constant sunshine throughout the year. Australia is even planning to produce extra green hydrogen to export. The second paper (from mostly the same authors) is again for a country close to the equator with limited seasonal variation which of course makes it a lot easier. The third study (again, same authors) about Japan (more seasonal variability) assumes use of hydrogen. Fourth paper (again, same authors... mmm) also is for a low-seasonal variability place. I have left academia a while ago so I haven't read the latest papers, but many of these have quite unrealistic assumptions. For Jacobson et al., you can check my thoughts in this previous discussion: Talk:Growth_of_photovoltaics. In short, I think his papers are flawed to say the least.
 * 2. I did. Flooded areas are not small.
 * 3. Where 1 GW power + 25 GWh per million people comes from? For temperate regions, I don't think that's realistic without dispatchable sources such as hydrogen, or without massive generation overbuilding and massive curtailment
 * 4. I did many hour-by-hour analysis by myself, that's why I am confident that it's not that simple.
 * I hope I am wrong, but from my experience modeling energy systems (in Europe and Japan) medium- and long-term storage (ie. very few-cycles storage, or dispatchable generation) is the biggest problem and the only practical (cost-effective) solution with 100% renewable energy is using P2G. I am sure that in some places this will not be necessary, but you need a very stable solar and wind resource throughout the year to avoid this. Australia is a good case of course, see the monthly sunshine hours in Brisbane (Brisbane) vs Berlin (Berlin). Ita140188 (talk) 21:02, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
 * 1) Australia is at low-moderate latitude and is the norm rather than the exception. Europe has a small fraction of global population. Few people live north of 45 degrees of latitude, and they mostly have fantastic offshore wind.
 * Japan paper models both 0% and 2% hydrogen. Both work. This is very far from a hydrogen-dominated system.
 * Your comments in Talk:Growth_of_photovoltaics turned out wrong. Look at most recent facts on the ground.
 * 2) How is a flooded area of 30-50 km2 for 1500 GWh not very small? - about 3 Ha per GWh. That is enough storage for 25-50 million people. About the area of double bed per person.
 * 3) Comes from our analysis of Australia, ASEAN, Japan, Bolivia in papers above. Most people live in the sunbelt.
 * 4) Are there peer-reviewed papers from your analysis? Zolwind (talk) 21:47, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
 * How did it turn out wrong? It's not 2030 yet! Anyway, this is not the place to have these kinds of discussions. There are plenty of papers on the subject, but I have no time unfortunately to do a literature review now. If you want to add the atlas to the article please go ahead, I am only against writing that PSH alone can provide enough storage for 100% renewable energy systems everywhere, which is not supported by the consensus in the literature. Ita140188 (talk) 22:31, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Active researchers agree that off river pumped hydro can do the whole storage job. The argument is over what is the cheapest method. In sensible electricity systems, that question is left to the market to sort out.
 * Pumped hydro is a highly credible, vast-scale, affordable, off-the-shelf technology, with 200GW of installed capacity, that needs zero arm waving (which is why Australia has 15GW/600GWh under development). If something cheaper turns up then well and good, but we don't have to wait until then to move ahead with vast scale deployment of solar/wind.
 * PS: your comment "I think the most glaring absurdity in Jacobson's assumptions is that hydropower can provide 1300 GW of power" - off-river pumped hydro can very easily do this. In fact, that's much less per person than is under development in Australia - a country not noted for mountains, rainfall and big rivers. Zolwind (talk) 23:14, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
 * You forgot the next sentence, "This while accounting for exactly zero capacity expansion of hydropower." Ita140188 (talk) 07:10, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Off-river pumped hydro energy storage produces zero new hydro energy in the sense of new dams on rivers.
 * Mark's central thesis was that the future of energy is Wind, Water and Sun. This turned out to be right. He was far closer to reality in his predictions than his critics - those who talked about nuclear, CCS, solar thermal, "ignore climate change and it will go away", "its all too hard", etc. Zolwind (talk) 07:59, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
 * How would you have a hydro capacity (GW) equivalent to 15 times the current capacity without any investment? It's not about ideology, it's about correct modeling and intellectual honesty. Nobody is arguing for ignoring climate change or that it's too hard to solve. We are discussing what are the best methods (cheapest, fastest, and most likely to work) to achieve zero carbon energy Ita140188 (talk) 08:30, 7 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Closed-loop pumped hydro CO2eq emissions, study. It should be in this article somewhere, but I don't see a neat place for it. TGCP (talk) 19:17, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Added in a reference to this article - thanks. Zolwind (talk) 04:57, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Lead rewrite tag
This article is tagged with the "Lead rewrite" tag. Is this still relevant? I'm not sure why the lead needs to be rewritten. Whizkin (talk) 20:41, 24 June 2024 (UTC)


 * There are inline external links, and a lot of information in the lead is not present elsewhere in the article. The lead should summarize the content of the article, not introduce new concepts, see MOS:INTRO. The lead may not even have references, and all references should definitely firstly be in the main body, see MOS:LEADCITE. Ita140188 (talk) 08:14, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Inline external links were removed. Whizkin (talk) 09:17, 2 July 2024 (UTC)