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Comment by bawolff | Hacker News Reader

I imagine the thaw/freeze cycle would be hell on the equipment to run pumped hydro storage.

Are there extant succesful examples of pumped hydro in cold regions?

You have Juktan in northern Sweden which was pumped hydro from 1978-1996, and now they want to re-build it back into pumped hydro again https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juktans_kraftstation

A reversable pump-turbine is not significantly different from a standard hydro generation turbine, and there are tons of examples of those operating in cold regions.

> Are there extant succesful examples of pumped hydro in cold regions?

There's some pumped hydro at Niagara falls in Canada, which is far enough North that it should see a bit of a that/freeze cycle but is still a relatively mild climate.

Don't know anything about what issues this does/doesn't present to them, just happen to know it exists.

For reference, Niagara Falls is at roughly the same latitude as Barcelona and Milan. Vääksy, Finland, is approximately 1,250 miles (2k km) north of there, slightly north of Anchorage, Alaska.

Latitude is a poor point of comparison here, North America tends to be substantially colder than Europe at the same latitude.

Or concretely Niagara Falls goes from an average low of -6.44 C in February to 21.0 C in July. Barcelona an average low of 4 C in January to 20.2 C in August (according to the internet).

But yes, it's warmer than Finland, just cold enough to see something of a freeze that cycle.

A couple days of -6 is probably a lot easier. Its probably still economical enough to heat the equipment on the days below 0. I imagine having a couple months of -20 is a bit different.

Surely the turbines could be fed from subsurface water that is not frozen.

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