Let’s get flexible - Pumped storage and the future of power systems

Pumped storage hydropower has proven to be an ideal solution to the growing list of challenges faced by grid operators.

As the transition to a clean energy future rapidly unfolds, this flexible technology will become even more important for a reliable, affordable and low carbon grid, write IHA analysts Nicholas Troja and Samuel Law.

"Anything that can go wrong will go wrong". That old adage, Murphy’s law, must seem appropriate for many power grid operators in 2020.

This year has tested the safe running and reliability of grids around the world like few others. Often termed ‘the biggest machine ever built,’ managing a power system, involving the coordination of complex and instantaneous interactions, is a formidable task at the best of times.

With the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on top of extreme weather events, greater penetrations of variable renewables and increasingly aged thermal assets, the task has only become more demanding in many markets.

These challenges have brought into sharp focus the growing need for energy storage, such as that offered by pumped storage hydropower.