Pumped Storage Development in Øvre Otra, Norway
Pumped Storage Development in Øvre Otra, Norway Lars Marius Rognlien Hydropower Development Submission date: June 2012 Supervisor: Ånund Killingtveit, IVM Co-supervisor: Leif Lia, IVM Norwegian University of Science and Technology Department of Hydraulic and Environmental Engineering Department of Hydraulic and Environmental Engineering MSc Thesis in Hydropower Development Candidate: Lars Marius Rognlien Topic: Pumped storage hydropower development in Øvre Otra, Norway 1. Background The future development of more renewable energy in Norway will probably mainly consist of small hydropower and wind power plants. This development is now mainly driven by the introduction of Green Certificates, which will secure funding also of projects that today are not economically feasible. Till 2020 it is planned that about 13 TWh of new capacity will be developed in Norway, and similar amounts in Sweden. Also in the rest of Europe one can see a rapid development of new renewable energy, mainly as wind and also some solar power. Much of the wind power development will be located close to Norway, in the North Sea. The driver for this development, as in Norway, is the EU 20/20/20 plan where 20% of energy consumption in Europe should be supplied from renewable sources before 2020. The rapid development of wind power, solar power and small hydro will put increasing pressure on the grid, since all of these lack storage capacity, the electrical energy production will be determined by the climatic conditions, not by the demand. It will therefore lead to the need for more balancing power sources, which can fill in when demand exceeds the production, for example during calm periods, and preferably also utilize some of the excess production during periods of strong wind.
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