Current Affair 1:

News: In her recent budget speech, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said a policy to promote pumped storage would be brought out to facilitate “smooth integration of the growing share of renewable energy with its variable and intermittent nature in the energy mix.”

Let understand in simple language:

Pumped storage hydropower (PSH) is a type of hydroelectric energy storage.

Pumped storage plants use the principle of gravity to generate electricity using water that has been previously pumped from a lower source to an upper reservoir.

Operation of pumped storage power plants requires two reservoirs viz. upper and lower reservoir. Water in upper reservoir is used for generating power during peak demand hours. The water in the lower reservoir is pumped back to the upper reservoir during the off-peak hours and the cycle continues.

Need for Pumped Storage Hydropower Project

Renewable energy sources like solar & wind energy are intermittent and variable in nature. This leads to challenges of grid-stability and temporal considerations in power availability. This requires immediate ramp-up & back down of generation for grid balancing & stability of grid frequency.

Pump Storage Technology is the only long term technically proven, cost-effective, highly efficient & operationally flexible way of energy storage on a large scale & available at short notice.

Advantages of pumped storage plants

Pumped storage plants can generate power continuously for long duration, depending on the storage capacity of the reservoir. These plants have a lifetime of over 40 years, and they operate with an efficiency of 70-80 per cent. Further, as compared to the conventional thermal generator, PSP has the ability of quick start-stop as well as higher ramping capability.

As per CEA, the current potential of ‘on-river pumped storage’ in India is 103 GW10. It is noted that out of 4.76 GW of installed capacity, 3.36 GW capacity is working in pumping mode.

 

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