INNOVATIVE OPERATION OF PUMPED HYDROPOWER STORAGE INNOVATION LANDSCAPE BRIEF © IRENA 2020 Unless otherwise stated, material in this publication may be freely used, shared, copied, reproduced, printed and/or stored, provided that appropriate acknowledgement is given of IRENA as the source and copyright holder. Material in this publication that is attributed to third parties may be subject to separate terms of use and restrictions, and appropriate permissions from these third parties may need to be secured before any use of such material. ISBN 978-92-9260-180-5 Citation: IRENA (2020), Innovation landscape brief: Innovative operation of pumped hydropower storage, International Renewable Energy Agency, Abu Dhabi. ABOUT IRENA The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) is an intergovernmental organisation that supports countries in their transition to a sustainable energy future and serves as the principal platform for international co-operation, a centre of excellence, and a repository of policy, technology, resource and financial knowledge on renewable energy. IRENA promotes the widespread adoption and sustainable use of all forms of renewable energy, including bioenergy, geothermal, hydropower, ocean, solar and wind energy in the pursuit of sustainable development, energy access, energy security and low-carbon economic growth and prosperity. www.irena.org ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This report was prepared by the Innovation team at IRENA’s Innovation and Technology Centre (IITC) and was authored by Nadeem Goussous, Alessandra Salgado, Arina Anisie and Francisco Boshell. Valuable review was provided by Mathis Rogner and Samuel Law (International Hydropower Association), Guido Federer (Swiss Federal Office of Energy), Rafael Kelman (PSR), Miguel Garagorri Miota and Marta Martinez Sanchez (Iberdrola), Candelaria Sánchez Galán (Gorona del Viento) and Hiroaki Yoshitake (Kyushu Electric Power), along with Elena Ocenic, Harold Anuta, Laura Casado and Paul Komor (IRENA). DISCLAIMER This publication and the material herein are provided “as is”. All reasonable precautions have been taken by IRENA to verify the reliability of the material in this publication. However, neither IRENA nor any of its officials, agents, data or other third- party content providers provides a warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, and they accept no responsibility or liability for any consequence of use of the publication or material herein. The information contained herein does not necessarily represent the views of all Members of IRENA. The mention of specific companies or certain projects or products does not imply that they are endorsed or recommended by IRENA in preference to others of a similar nature that are not mentioned. The designations employed and the presentation of material herein do not imply the expression of any opinion on the part of IRENA concerning the legal status of any region, country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of frontiers or boundaries. Photographs are from Shutterstock unless otherwise indicated. This document does not represent the official position of IRENA on any particular topic. Rather, it is intended as a contribution to technical discussions on the promotion of renewable energy. www.irena.org Load shifting and reduction of variable renewable energy (VRE) curtailment 1 BENEFITS Pumped hydropower storage Frequency regulation (PHS) ranges from instantaneous Innovative PHS operation to the scale of minutes operation Fast and fl exible ramping and days, providing corresponding services to the whole power system. Black start PHS coupled Capacity fi rming with VRE 2 KEY ENABLING FACTORS 3 SNAPSHOT Regulatory framework incentivising ➜ Installed PHS capacity reached fl exible operation 161 gigawatts (GW) by 2018 ➜ PHS capacity is set to double by 2050 Digitalisation of PHS systems ➜ A wind-hydropower hybrid project with PHS supported 100% renewable power generation Retrofi tting PHS facilities for 24 days on El Hierro in Spain's Canary Islands in mid-2019 Public-private research, development ➜ and demonstration (RD&D) projects Dinorwig power station in Wales, UK, (1.8 gigawatt generation capacity and 11 gigawatt-hours storage) is Europe's largest PHS system, suffi cient to cover peak load. STORAGE TO ENHANCE SOLAR AND WIND POWER Different PHS configurations to optimise VRE integration: Conventional PHS balancing VRE plants with PHS VRE technologies integrated systems with VRE as storage on site into PHS facilities INNOVATIVE OPERATION OF PUMPED HYDROPOWER STORAGE Pumped Hydropower Storage (PHS) serves as a giant water-based "battery", helping to manage the variability of solar and wind power INNOVATION LANDSCAPE BRIEF ABOUT THIS BRIEF his brief forms part of the IRENA project innovations to create actual solutions. Solutions T“Innovation landscape for a renewable- to drive the uptake of solar and wind power span powered future”, which maps the relevant four broad dimensions of innovation: enabling innovations, identifies the synergies and formulates technologies, business models, market design solutions for integrating high shares of variable and system operation. renewable energy (VRE) into power systems. Along with the synthesis report, the project The synthesis report, “Innovation landscape for a includes a series of briefs, each covering one of renewable-powered future: Solutions to integrate 30 key innovations identified across those four variable renewables” (IRENA, 2019a), illustrates dimensions. The 30 innovations are listed in the the need for synergies between different figure below. INNOVATION DIMENSIONS ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES BUSINESS MODELS MARKET DESIGN SYSTEM OPERATION 1 Utility scale batteries 12 Aggregators 17 Increasing time 25 Future role of distribution 2 Behind-the-meter 13 Peer-to-peer electricity granularity in electricity system operators batteries trading markets 26 Co-operation between 14 Energy-as-a-service 18 Increasing space transmission and 3 Electric-vehicle granularity in electricity distribution system smart charging 15 Community-ownership markets operators 4 Renewable models 19 Innovative ancillary power-to-heat 16 Pay-as-you-go models 27 Advanced forecasting services 5 Renewable of variable renewable 20 Re-designing capacity power-to-hydrogen power generation markets 28 Innovative operation 6 Internet of Things 21 Regional markets of pumped hydropower 7 Artificial intelligence 22 storage and big data 23 Market integration 8 Blockchain 29 Virtual power lines of distributed energy 30 Dynamic line rating 9 Renewable mini-grids resources 10 Supergrids 24 Net billing schemes 11 Flexibility in conventional power plants 4 INNOVATIVE OPERATION OF PUMPED HYDROPOWER STORAGE This brief provides an overview of new ways to PHS has the ability to actively absorb surplus operate pumped hydropower storage (PHS) to power from the grid, making it a more cost- provide greater flexibility to the power sector effective flexibility option than technologies such and integrate larger shares of VRE in power as batteries, interconnections or Power-to-X. systems. The innovative operation of PHS and its complementarity with other power generating The brief is structured as follows: technologies offer plenty of opportunities for VRE integration. PHS represents over 10% of the I Description total hydropower capacity worldwide and 94% of the global installed energy storage capacity II Contribution to power sector transformation (IHA, 2018). III Key factors to enable deployment Known as the oldest technology for large-scale energy storage, PHS can be used to balance IV Current status and examples of ongoing the grid, complement other renewable energy initiatives infrastructure and facilitate effective supply shifts. V Implementation requirements: Checklist 5 INNOVATION LANDSCAPE BRIEF I. DESCRIPTION raditionally, a pumped hydro storage 161 gigawatts (GW) of installed global storage T(PHS) facility pumps water uphill into capacity (IHA, 2018). a reservoir, consuming electricity when demand and electricity prices are low, and IRENA's global roadmap calls for a two-thirds then allows water to flow downhill through increase in hydropower installed capacity, to turbines, generating electricity when demand 2 147 GW, by 2050. In other words, around increases and electricity prices are higher (GE 850 GW of new installed capacity is required in Power, 2017). Currently, PHS systems are the the next 30 years. As part of that target, PHS primary technology used to provide electricity would need to double, reaching 325 GW (Figure storage services to the grid, accounting for 1) (IRENA, 2019b). Figure 1 Growth in PHS installed capacity by 2050 GW GW GW PHS total installed capacity Source: IHA (2018); IRENA (2019b). Note: PHS = pumped hydropower storage. The transition to renewable energy sources, vary from 1.8 to 50 USD per megawatt-hour particularly wind and solar, requires increased (MWh) and short-term energy storage costs flexibility in power systems. Wind and solar vary from 370 to 600 USD per kilowatt (kW) of generation are intermittent and have seasonal installed power generation capacity when dam, variations, resulting in increased need for storage to tunnel, turbine, generator, excavation and land guarantee that the demand can be met at any time. costs are considered (Hunt et al., 2020). Short-term energy storage solutions with batteries Innovation has driven development in the are being used to resolve intermittency issues. operation of PHS stations, both in mechanical However,