World's largest pumped storage power plant fully operational in China | Hacker News Reader

World's largest pumped storage power plant fully operational in China

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82 pointsphilipkglass86 comments

One of my favorite theoretical energy storage methods is manmade island dams. The idea is to build a circular dyke in the ocean, and then use the encapsulated sea as pumped hydro storage. It would be paired with a windfarm, floating solar, and whatever other power generating methods would easily co-locate.

Unsurprisingly, the Dutch seem to have put a lot of thought into it: https://deingenieur.nl/artikelen/lievense-de-man-van-het-ops...

Seems like storage potential would suffer from a lack of height and long dam length.

It sounds more like tidal energy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_power

36GW hours of water storage is pretty amazing. Looking at how much Solar/Wind over capacity you would need to take advantage of that is an interesting exercise in itself.

That said, from a "we're doing things to be 100% renewable and/or zero ghg" China has been making some strides that the rest of the world would do well to emulate or match.

China still generates approximately two thirds of it's electricity by burning fossil fuels so it still has a plenty of catching up to do. For example in my country power generation is already 94% carbon free.

China generates more renewable energy than the next highest 5 countries combined. It's nonsensical to compare them to most other countries.

Do you know how fractions and percentages work?

Do you know how scaling industrial processes works?

Renewable electricity hydro-electric dams don't really work like that. You can't "scale out", because you're limited by waterflow, reservoir area etc. There's a natural ceiling.

China's renewable energy is mostly solar.

China backing off coal power plant approvals after 2022-23 surge - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41303635 - Aug 2024

China's total wind and solar capacity outstrips coal - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41220098 - Aug 2024

China is on track to reach its 2030 clean energy targets already - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41026542 - July 2024

China installing the wind / solar equivalent of 5 nuclear power stations a week - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40982276 - July 2024

China building two-thirds of world's wind and solar projects - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40940950 - July 2024

China's clean energy pushes coal to record-low 53% share of power in May 2024 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40935688 - July 2024

China's Batteries Are Now Cheap Enough to Power Huge Shifts - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40919052 - July 2024

China is building more coal plants but might burn less coal - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39440374 - Feb 2024

Look at trajectories, think in systems. They are rapidly building a nation state clean energy electrical system, and when they're done domestically, these products will be exported globally.

The graphs on the below page might be helpful.

https://globalenergymonitor.org/report/china-continues-to-le...

Sure - all I'm saying is that they still have a whole lot of building to do, that's all. Reading the headlines it's sometimes easy to think that they're pretty much already there while the current production mix is not all that great yet.

I'm not sure the trajectory of PR matters much.

The actual generation trajectory seems more useful: https://www.eia.gov/international/analysis/country/CHN

I think that page is telling a similar story to the PR:

"Primary energy production (percentage)" says 15% in Table 1 at the top, but I'm not sure how that's calculated - the whole table is as it seems to contradict the rest of the page:

- Generation by renewable sources has grown from 25% -> 40% from 2013 -> 2022 (Figure 5)

- 32 new nuclear power plants under construction in 2023 (Table 5)

- 49% of installed capacity in 2022 was renewables (Figure 6)

Nuclear is much more important than wind and solar because it provides baseload and the plants last longer than 20 years.

Electricity generation is what the grandparent was talking about, though the actual primary energy consumption of fossil fuels is more important w.r.t. climate change.

Primary energy production includes things like domestic coal production. Primary energy consumption includes things like gas consumption by cars, imports and distribution losses.

yeah but your article is about 2021 and 2022, and the point is this stuff is changing really fast especially in the past 2 years

I’m so tired explaining people what the capacity factor and baseload are and why wind and solar do not replace conventional power plants.

Germany has an installed solar capacity of 100 GW, 72 GW wind and some hydro and bio mass.

Yet there are 109 coal plants and 267 natural gas plants in Germany.

Comparing wind and solar with conventional power plants is completely pointless.

Unless you have a way of storing your power and replaying it when needed.

Like a lake that can maybe sustain 36GW of output for 10 hours.

I know it is a typo, but for other readers the figure in the article is 3.6 GW from 12 300 MW turbines, not 36 GW.

The best metric is CO2 reduction. Running fossil fuel plants for less time is a useful objective towards that.

There are two caveats to this. One is that a lot of it is due to work being outsourced to China (which allows for metrics like 94% carbon free) The other is it has a huge population so it's going to have high absolute numbers of everything good and bad.

Actually, what allows for "94% carbon free" is the production mix. In our case that would be nuclear at 42% share, hydro 19%, wind 18%, bio 13% - leaving only single digit percentage to coal, gas and oil.

But it doesn't account for embodied energy in imported products.

It's not typically included in the production figures. You only consider the emissions from production.

It's not typically considered, but it matters when comparing against an economy that primarily manufactures goods.

The initial statement was about power generation, not sure if it is of value to mention in this context all the other sources of carbon (of which imported products is one, but not the only one).

Finland is unfortunately a bit of an outlier. I wish the rest of the world would also double down on nuclear.

Nuclear requires an extremely mature bureaucracy to handle the serious longterm risks efficiently. Here in the USA I'm just not sure our government is mature enough for the task. Every 4 years we may have someone come in to slash safety regulations or erect impossible regulatory barriers, not to mention all of our defense treaty obligations and their churn. Every year (or less!) our congress may decide to let the government shutdown and stop paying critical contractors. Trains carrying spent or unspent fuel may derail thanks to inefficient regulation. etc etc.

One of the massive benefits of wind and solar is that it can be scaled down to a size even a consumer can deploy. This makes it relatively resilient to regulatory whims compared to massive undertakings like nuclear. I'm not a nuclear engineer, but I suspect the recent emphasis on smaller nuclear plants has more to do with navigating regulatory hurdles and uncertainty than efficiency.

All that to say I am quite jealous of countries with mature bureaucratic regimes that can efficiently manage nuclear!

> navigating regulatory hurdles and uncertainty than efficiency.

Yes, but also (theoretically-real) economies of scale.

They also make basically everything, so yeah, not sure what you expect. If America produced everything for the world, our fossil fuel usage would be through the roof as well.

China is of course doing this with zero need for environmental impact studies, which would be impossible in the west, even with the ostensible goal of reducing carbon emissions.

They do. Here is a summary of the environmental impaction evaluation of stage 2. Whether it is scientific enough, I cannot say because I haven't read the report (judging from the summary, readers need to contact them to get the report, which is pretty annoying).

https://www.fengning.gov.cn/art/2014/6/23/art_3204_165228.ht...

You have to give clear evidence that china’s environment impact process is weaker than those followed in global north. Even if what you presume without data is 100% true ..

That is hardly the only or a key reason for slow adoption of green technologies in Europe or US.

There has to political will to do large changes that is weak everywhere else outside China.

Even if any project has heavy ecological impact locally, that doesn’t compare with far bigger problem of climate change.

Rich countries lack of action is basically a slap in the face of the global south, saying that they care more about few fish and birds, over the all poor people in the world who will suffer from the greenhouse gases bulk of which they emitted .

I would characterize that as just modern colonial wealth extraction with class and racial overtones.

Remember climate change impacts poor communities far more than the rich, that is true even in rich countries. It shouldn’t be so easy a moral decision to say environmental impact mitigation is more important than people .

Bureaucracy and red tape in the name of safeguards are weak excuses, when tens of if not hundreds of millions will die as direct or indirect consequence of climate change this century .

I agree with this. We need some nuance. We cannot just look at chinas human rights record and decide that justifies slow western bureaucracy when it comes to infrastructure. We can't hold them up as a bogeyman to justify our own inefficiencies.

It can also just force millions of people to move away, ie the Three Gorges Dam.

Do you have a source for that?

Of course the Chinese are not uninterested in protecting their environmental values. You seem to be under the impression that environmental impact studies exist to obstruct progress. They exist to prevent external costs carried by the local population and future generations

his source is he made it up and it feels correct

It’s 12 units, 300 MW each so 3.6 GW, not 36 GW.

> When fully charged, the upper reservoir can store enough energy to power the plant at full capacity for 10.8 hours

That's actually 38.8GWh so close enough.

Both the GW and GWh are important and independent characteristics

Gwh/Mwh and GW/MW are not the same units. One is a time based unit, scales to duration and the other is peak intensity. You can deliver 1 GW for an hour is 1 Gwh and the same Gwh can deliver 500 MW for 2 hours or 250 MW for 4 hours.

Ah yes I misread because it was written separately. Not sure where 36 GWh came from though.

What is extremely novel about this facility is the variable speed pump turbines and dc grid connection for the plant. Hydro plants usually (exclusively other than this one?) use synchronous machines that operate at a fixed speed.

Variable speed hydro turbines is quite cutting edge for an old field where change occurs very slowly and carefully

I'd suggest browsing through ourworldindata.org's energy section. It is an absolutely astonishing accomplishment what China has built with slashing PV and battery prices as well as production capacities in recent years. Dynamics are such that there's hope they'll reach peak CO2 emissions in the upcoming few years, way ahead of their own plans. I'm saying that as a German whose 20y old idea (be a global supplier for renewable tech) they copied and executed like 10x better.

China had 3 big goals for last 20+ years or so in their 5 year economic plans: getting rod of fossil fuel dependency, becoming a knowledge economy, increasing the share of service economy. Every government organization is working on to realize these. All the subsidies for EVs are there because they don't want to rely on gas and coal since it's not sustainable. Germany was lobbying to EU on the benefits of "clean diesel" till recently.

And they missed all of them. And their PR pieces got peddled in the west by journalists, to keep the remainders of the "green" revolution going in the west in increments, by generating virtual progress of a imaginary opposition. Goto keep up with the Johnsons halfway around the world, whos house may or may not be cardboard. Well meaning, but in the end, even well meaning lies destroy your megaphone.

I don't know what journalista say, I don't read newspapers.

My source on thus is international institutions like IEA and World Bank. The energy transition is going good according to the World Bank https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-rep...

I ve read the report: https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/1628416385085972...

It does not quote its sources, but that sources seem to be the chinese government. Which then reports the progress of its provinicial governments- who miraculously always meet the set goals, by shifting goalposts and faking it. So, that fluff peace this aggregated into up on an hill high, does mean nothing.

During the great leap forward the chinese government statistics reported record harvests, enough to export grain to the sovjiet union. Meanwhile on the ground: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward#Deaths_by_f...

So, just because some provincial government buys scrapped solar cells to put them up unconnected some not used fields, buy a sattelite picture and doctor a report, while actually depending on coal plants that are planned and built. https://globalenergymonitor.org/projects/global-coal-plant-t... i do not believe that nonsense.

Most EVs sold in China are actually hybrids which is why the category is called NEV, i.e. new energy vehicles.

I can't find any data to support this, just the figure that NEVs account for ~40% of new sales, no further breakdown. Do you have a reference, I'd be very curious to see the breakdown -- my view is biased by the high pure EV penetration in cities like Shenzhen.

> A total of 2.62 million passenger cars were sold in December, meaning the NEV penetration rate was 52.6%.

> Between January and November, BEV share was 58%, while PHEV share was 42% in China.

https://carnewschina.com/2025/01/08/early-data-shows-record-...

> the subsidies for EVs are there because they don't want to rely on gas and coal since it's not sustainable

China doesn't want to rely on gas because they have to import it. They're fine relying on coal, which they can produce reliably, which is why they keep building coal-fired plants.

So does Germany. They are facing a recession due to over reliance of Russian gas not playing out well.

> So does Germany

Germany has the same reliance but Europe broadly hasn't done anything about it, substituting piped gas from Russia with shipped gas from America. (Which, unfortunately, is their only option absent re-firing coal or turning on nukes.)

Nuclear is the best option for Germany, which they use a lot, buy buying electricity from France.

China is currently building 29 nuclear power plants in parallel and plans to issue construction permits for 10 reactors each year.

The country is expected to reach an installed nuclear capacity of 400 GW in 2060.

And, unlike wind and solar, nuclear power plants provide baseload and can actually drive an electricity grid.

> The country is expected to reach an installed nuclear capacity of 400 GW in 2060.

Within the next ~14 months, the world will be deploying ~1TW/solar every year, ~200GW assuming 20% capacity factor for "apples to apples" comparison to thermal generation with a higher capacity factor. Compare to the rate of nuclear deployment and your 2060 figure, 35 years away.

> And, unlike wind and solar, nuclear power plants provide baseload and can actually drive an electricity grid.

There are numerous electrical grids in the world that operate without nuclear. There is minimum demand that needs to be met, but clearly nuclear isn't needed to do that (as evidenced by low carbon grids that operate without it).

https://e360.yale.edu/features/three-myths-about-renewable-e...

https://www.minister.industry.gov.au/ministers/husic/media-r...

https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/NYNu...

https://www.google.com/search?q=baseload+is+a+myth

China is absolutely eating the wests lunch when it comes to infrastructure. We need to wake up or we'll find ourselves at a disadvantage that would take generations to come back from.

I recently discovered that their energy transition policy goes back to 10th 5 year plan (2001-2005). I think though a lit of focus was then transitioning from coal to natural gas and nuclear, which isn't surprising. What is interesting is they odentified PV and wind energy as key technologies for future to de-caebonize. 5 years later, with 11th 5 year plan they have made reducing energy intensity and emissions by 20% a binding target, which was binding for everyone including the higher ups and lowest level of government employees. This made a lot of funds availabile for these projects and R&D. They went beyond the target. Currently they have a massive edge to the West, because contemporary capitalism focuses heavily on quarterly earnings rather than lobger term goals. So there are two systems competing and optimizing for different metrics.

> Currently they have a massive edge to the West, because contemporary capitalism focuses heavily on quarterly earnings rather than lobger term goals

You're forgetting about the environmental impact studies and the resulting bans to build anything in areas which are deemed to be important habitats. About the miles of red tape and stacks of regulations which need to be followed to build anything in 'the west'. Having an autocratic government which can just dictate whatever they want does help to get things going but in the west such a government style is only ever seen in times of war and even then they do not have as much authority as the CCP has in China. This is unrelated to the economic system - a capitalist dictatorship could achieve the same by pushing through its demands - so it does not make sense to blame it on 'capitalism'. It is the autocracy which makes it possible.

> It is the autocracy which makes it possible.

which is the whole point of the ideology of the CCP - that autocratic gov't, rather than democracy, is a better governing structure.

The idea is not even new - it stems from ancient china, from the days of the emperors. That their rule is mandated by heaven, and that they know what's best for the country.

The same idea was tried in Europe some 2500 to 2000 years ago:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_dictators

The difference here is that Roman dictators were appointed to fix specific problems and did not derive their mandate from the heavens. Eventually the dictatorship took on a life of its own which then led to the fall of the Roman republic and the start of the Roman Empire - which later fell due to mismanagement and possibly the effects of a cooling climate [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Warm_Period

I don't believe democracies cannot build big infrastructure because it's hard to get permits. This ignores the reality of last 200 years, especially the cold war.

I don't believe capitalism inherently incapable of this either. China, as you said, an autocratic country but not a socialist one. It is plainly capitalist, and they are able to make German EV manufacturers sweat.

Democracies are certainly capable of building infrastructure but they tend to be less agile than dictatorships since they can not just appropriate land and disown whomever they please. This is a good thing in times of peace and prosperity but it can be a hindrance in times of war.

China is not a capitalist country though, the system is closer to some form of fascism which is just one of the many forms of collectivism under which socialism and communism also reside. Fascism and socialism/communism are closely related through their reliance on central economic planning and the fact that they empower the state over the individual, it is mostly rhetoric which divides them. Socialism is the pre-stage to communism, the difference being that in a socialist state the means of production are owned by the state while the state is supposed to wither away under communism because it is no longer needed.

Look up "tofu dregs construction" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8VFi-XMkgc

These are huge investments but I believe countries that heavily invest in renewables are going to get ahead of those who don’t due to lower energy costs.

And if countries refuse to reduce their carbon footprint, we may start to put some tariffs on your goods and services.

What was the old record holder? Bath County in the U.S. is nearly this large.

This from the Bath County website : "Net generating capacity is 3,003-megawatts (6 units)." That is 1/1000th the capacity of the 3.6 Gigawatts that this Chinese facility can produce.

3000MW == 3GW

From Wikipedia link above:

Bath County: 3.0GW output, 24GWh capacity

Fengning: 3.6GW output, 40GWh capacity

Check your unit conversion

There's a pretty good list here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pumped-storage_hydroel...

This looks like the previous record holder (by stored energy, not power):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raccoon_Mountain_Pumped-Storag...

Thanks for the link! Under construction is far more interesting. Out of the 118 under construction (>1000MW), 112 are in China, with 6 from the rest of the world. China is adding 157 GW of storage just from pumped storage.

> Fengning’s advanced design includes an upper reservoir with a capacity of 45.04 million cubic meters and a lower reservoir holding 71.56 million cubic meters.

A cubic meter of water weighs a tonne. So that’s literally tonnes and tonnes of water.

Those are incredible but unfortunately you need the right topology to build them. I don't know about the US but I doubt there's much more of those to be built in Europe.

Maybe if we bulldozed some ski resorts.

Many normal hydroelectric dams can be converted, they already have half the setup .

As long as there is a lower reservoir or space for one , any hydroelectric dam could converted to pumped storage without additional ecological impact .

I don't think the US has any either, there's a reason they built Tom Sauk (not sure there's any other pretty much entirely artificial PHS).

There might be a few locations in the Alps e.g. existing barrages which could be retrofitted into PHS in Switzerland and Austria (KOPS II was commissioned in 2008).

Sweden snd Norway, maybe? Turkey has a lot of potential sites.

There are some viable places in Europe, but the biggest problem seems to be actually getting all the permits required to build them. One can't just chop the top of a mountain nowadays.

China does not seem to have this problem.

https://maps.nrel.gov/psh (us)

Europe has Norway for storage, but limited renewable potential compared to the US or China (not nothing, offshore wind is a thing, but the available land area for solar is very limited).

Surely the Alps have feasible locations, Switzerland opened a plant pretty recently.

The correct topology is very common. All you need is water and a hill.

We've already tapped most of the suitable places for hydro dams because those need flowing water. Pumped storage does not need flowing water so the number of potential sites is massively larger.

ANU identified 616,000 potential sites: https://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/global/

Did they really install mood lighting above their generators?

It seems like it from the picture of their turbine hall.

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