If it is barely cheaper than lithium, it's much more expensive than traditional pumped storage.
Yeah, it's expensive to build, but then cheap to run for decades.
It's nice that we explore alternatives but this just seems like investor bait
Yeah, it's expensive to build, but then cheap to run for decades.
It's nice that we explore alternatives but this just seems like investor bait
You don’t want to used pumped hydro for short term storage because the rapid cycling will drive up the maintenance costs. You actually hear about hydro power plants talking about installing batteries to reduce wear.
In these discussions please keep in mind that frequency regulation, short term and long term shortage are different applications with different needs. The costs for pumped hydro are generally reported with their target application in mind. It’s not as applicable to dedicated short term storage and certainly not applicable to frequency regulation.
> In these discussions please keep in mind that frequency regulation, short term and long term shortage are different applications with different needs.
The comparison is valid; If you want to fill hour to hour demand or add some frequency regulation, an inverter with a bunch of batteries is far, far better than this
> You don’t want to used pumped hydro for short term storage because the rapid cycling will drive up the maintenance costs. You actually hear about hydro power plants talking about installing batteries to reduce wear.
They are still cycled daily, that's the entire point of them that even worked pre renewables - load up on cheap night energy and unload it with demand. Renewables just flipped that to load in solar peak.
And putting few hours worth of batteries to reduce cycling is beneficial in both of those cases.
Don't do that here.
But it's sad that you get triggered by snark and not... ignorance and/or lying