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TheNatureBoy t1_ja1j5m9 wrote

Reply to comment by Dirty_South_Cracka in How Much Land Would It Require To Get Most Of Our Electricity From Wind & Solar? by BlitzOrion

What if during the day time the grid powers pumps to fill damns?

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Cerran424 t1_ja4jbb2 wrote

As an engineer who has worked on several pumped storage projects the big challenge there is location. If you are going to pump water uphill you have to get it from somewhere. In drought stricken areas like CA that’s not super realistic. It’s also limited by geography and the capex costs are very high.

I’m currently working on a pumped storage system but it’s in rural Montana where water is plentiful and building restrictions aren’t as challenging and they still have issues with power wheeling agreements. Simply put pumped storage is far more complicated than most people realize.

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TheNatureBoy t1_ja4pbpv wrote

What do you feel about the current project at the Hoover Dam?

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Cerran424 t1_ja4r5hm wrote

It has a lot of technical hurdles to solve before it’s a viable project especially with the current drought situation at Lake Mead.

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TheNatureBoy t1_ja4s63q wrote

Sorry to bother you again. How does the water level effect the process? Do the pumps just pump to a fixed height? (I understand fluids up to the Navier-Stokes equation)

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Cerran424 t1_ja4srkv wrote

The water level question is more how much water can be recycled given the discharge requirements and flow downstream.

You would likely have to design the pumps to lift water to the maximum height of Lake Mead.

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TheNatureBoy t1_ja4v5yl wrote

Damn, that sounds like a tremendous energy loss with a low lake.

Thanks for the response.

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Cerran424 t1_ja4svx9 wrote

I’m mainly making an educated guess based on requirements of past projects.

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pinkfootthegoose t1_ja3vf60 wrote

during the day the dam can just stop letting water flow, they fill themselves.

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Cerran424 t1_ja4jhmh wrote

Can’t just stop letting it flow in most cases because of downstream consequences like irrigation and navigation.

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peter-doubt t1_ja1kof8 wrote

You're storage will likely be 60% efficient... a start, but too inefficient to be a reliable backup. Why not use wind to do this when demand isn't near full production?

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