Wind & pumped hydro II 1

[dloc]

A large wind farm is going in ~1 mile from an incised river valley with 180 to 200 feet of fall from the surrounding land to the riverbed. Does this represent a viable pumped energy system?

 

[dloc]

Thanks for everyone’s comments, relevant or not. Concluded that 200’ in this situation isn’t viable. Didn’t find any pumped hydro under ~280’. Could increase flow to account for lower head but that requires more turbines/pumps – so greater capital equipment and operating costs. As pumped volume increases, the percentage of river water being consumed and the peak flows back into the river starts to create environmental issues. Looked for and found an off-site viable pumped hydro site a state away. But you have to create the grid infrastructure to the site; and transmission losses and transmission costs are not insignificant.

If I was a consultant in this area, I’d create a simple section on a web site that summarizes the issues and use it to drive business development and minimize – questions. I never found such and now know that my original question could be boiled down to a few questions to which a few rules of thumb are applied.