For all the excitement over the next big thing in lithium-ion batteries, the simple fact is that plain old water is the only large scale, long duration energy storage medium available today in the US and in many other parts of the world. The challenge is that water batteries — aka pumped hydropower — require expensive new infrastructure, which limits their application. That could be about to change, and it looks like the US Department of Energy is determined to be the change maker.
But First, A Word About Seams
To get a snapshot of how pumped hydro fits into the national energy profile, let’s go back to last week when The Atlantic published an account of the Energy Department’s ill-fated Interconnections Seam Study under the title and subtitle, “How a Plan to Save the Power System Disappeared: A federal lab found a way to modernize the grid, reduce reliance on coal, and save consumers billions. Then Trump appointees blocked it.”
The Seam study was a wide-ranging, collaborative effort aimed at enabling more electricity to hop back and forth across the US, rather than getting stuck at a “seam” that splits the nation into two grids (Texas, unsurprisingly, has a third electricity grid all to itself). The study is part of the Energy Department’s ongoing grid modernization effort, which comes down heavy on the side of renewable energy and energy storage.
The Atlantic presented the story of the Seam study as a successful attempt to block clean power. Be that as it may, seam or no seam, more renewable energy has been making it onto the grid, partly with support from other Energy Department R&D programs. There is plenty more where that came from, and energy storage will play a larger role in the future as more wind and solar come aboard.
Long Duration Energy Storage On The Cheap
That brings us to the Energy Department’s push for more and better energy storage in the form of pumped hydropower.
For those of you new to the topic, pumped hydro can take advantage of renewable energy to pump water from a lower reservoir to an upper reservoir. When the local grid needs more electricity, gravity does the rest. Water from the upper reservoir scoots downhill to run turbines, and ends up in the lower reservoir.
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