Status of Pumped Storage Hydroelectricity and Its Future in the Next Decade: A Technical Review Based on Comparative Study

Abstract:
Pumped storage is an efficient way to store energy, mainly consisting of two reservoirs and a waterwheel system connecting the upper and lower reservoirs. It uses solar and winds energy for energy storage to make fuller use of energy. At present, in Europe and the United States, new pumped storage power plants have been put into use on a large scale, so there have been fewer new pumped storage power plants in recent years. As the rapid rise of its economy in the last 30 years, China has only gradually put into use pumped storage power plants in recent years. Since pumped storage has the advantage of high efficiency and high return, the possibility of converting ordinary hydroelectric power plants into pumped storage power plants has been studied. Some of the influencing factors are geographical and environmental factors, maximum head, the ratio of head to water circuit length and wire connection distance, which are quantitatively analysed in this paper. Finally, this paper lists some advantages and disadvantages of pumped storage, analyses them with examples and gives an outlook on the development of this technology in the next decade.