A Novel Control Method Of Variable Speed Pumped Storage Power Plant

Abstract

A White Paper Developed by NHA's Pumped Storage Development Council NHA – Pumped Storage Development Council Challenges and Opportunities For New Pumped Storage Development 2 1.0 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY An essential attribute of our nation's electric power system is grid reliability -ensuring that electric generation matches electric demand in real-time. The primary challenge in ensuring reliability is that electricity has no shelf life -it must be generated when needed -and electricity demand continually changes, especially between daytime periods of peak demand and night-time periods of low demand. Electric transmission grid operators have long met this challenge on a real-time basis with a limited number of generation technologies -specifically hydropower and gas-fired combustion turbines -that have the ability to start up quickly and/or vary their electric output as the demand changes. However, these solutions may not be enough as we move into a world with far greater amounts of renewable energy on the grid. In that new reality, reliable, affordable and grid-scale storage of energy must be on the table. Fortunately, a technology exists that has been providing grid-scale energy storage at highly affordable prices for decades: hydropower pumped storage. Indeed, for the foreseeable future hydropower pumped storage stands alone as the only commercially proven technology available for grid-scale energy storage. The last decade has seen tremendous growth of wind and solar generation in response to favorable tax incentives and other policies. While increasing the amount of renewables on the grid is a good thing, the variability of wind and solar generation increase the need for energy storage.