Are pumped storage facilities a viable solution for multi-functional power plants?

As multi-functional power plants, pumped storage facilities have a high potential to meet this challenge, because their technology is based on the only long-term, technically proven and cost-effective form of storing energy on a large scale, thereby making it available at short notice.

What is a pumped storage power station?

Their special feature: They are an energy store and a hydroelectric power plant in one. If there is a surplus of power in the grid, the pumped storage power station switches to pumping mode – an electric motor drives the pump turbines, which pumps water from a lower reservoir to a higher storage basin.

How pumped storage power plants work?

The principle behind the operation of pumped storage power plants is both simple and ingenious. Their special feature: They are an energy store and a hydroelectric power plant in one.

What is pumped storage?

The water flows into the lower basin. Pumped storage is economically and environmentally the most developed form of storing energy during base-load phases while making this energy available to the grid for peaking supply needs and system regulation. Voith has delivered this technology since its inception.

Where can a pump turbine be installed?

With a wide range of specific speeds, pump turbines can be installed at sites with heads up to 800 meters and with unit capacities ranging from less than 10 to 500 megawatts. Voith is continually advancing its state-of-the-art technological capabilities with developments that include variable-speed technology and wide head range applications.

How reliable are pumped power plants?

These machines have proven extremely reliable in practical operation. Hybrid solutions – such pumped storage power plants combined with wind and/or solar farms – are becoming increasingly important for the generation and storage of clean, renewable energy, as well as in the production of drinking water.