Evaluating Pumped Hydro storage technology in the era of renewable generation and ancillary Markets Jain Anil, Chakraborty Arindam, Gupta Sanjay Kumar, Kandpal Krishna Kumar, Shukla Nitu, Prashant Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd., India Online published on 10 May, 2019. Abstract The world is gearing up for a fossil fuel free future. Ever since the advent of solar and wind energy technology, there has been tremendous amount of work going on around the world for making them grid friendly and cost effective. The basic challenge is to overcome the problems of intermittency, variability, balancing power and load following capability. Though the intermittency problem is largely addressed by scaling up of infrastructure however, the need for an optimized balancing reserve capability and load following problem is yet to be effectively dealt with. In order to make wind and solar energy compete with fossil fuels we need to develop grid scale storage capacity which shall take care of both balancing reserve and load following. In addition the storage capacity shall act as a countervailing force in times of frequency deviations. This paper analyses the various ways to store renewable energy and also tries to establish how pumped hydro storage stands out of all other available methods of energy storage. The study of feasibility of various storage methods is based on capability to provide for peaking power, load following, primary and secondary response characteristics, cost effectiveness & gestation period. Pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) system is an old technique. They were limited in scale because of problems of economic feasibility. The pumped storage plants were based on arbitrage only which made the payback period very long and unviable. Also, the gestation period was very long. So, in spite of being grid friendly there were not many takers for PHES. Recently PHES is gaining importance because of the advent of ancillary markets, high penetration of intermittent wind and solar power and need for a quickly available, reliable and easy to operate storage technology. The presence of ancillary market helps PHES to increase earnings through supporting the grid in times of need. Its primary response characteristics and ramp up and ramp down rates are as good as any existing hydro power plant. The ability to provide peaking power, load following and primary response makes it the most suitable energy storage options presently available. With the government of India bringing out Regulations on Storage technology, the benefits of PHES cannot be ignored. The paper tries to make a case for setting up of PHES at sites along the coastal line of India and remodel such hydro power plants that have either been lying idle due to the drying up of the water source or are too aged to be operated. This shall allow speedy execution of the PHES as it will not require any fresh land acquisition, resettlement & rehabilitation and other such factors that usually delay the execution of hydro projects. Top Keywords Pumped Hydro Storage, Ancillary Services, Energy Storage, Balancing Reserve, Duck Curve-Indian Power System. Top |