Posted on 09/19/2011 12:12:21 PM PDT by Brookhaven
At the edge of the tailwater of the Kinzua Dam on the Allegheny River in Warren County sits a hydroelectric generating station.
But the Seneca Pumped-Storage Hydro Generating Station isn't powered by the water flowing through the dam, like the more familiar hydroelectric projects such as Hoover Dam, but rather from a 2 billion gallon reservoir perched some 800 feet above, among the trees of the Allegheny National Forest.
"Pumped-storage hydro is a different animal," said Mark Durbin, spokesman for the facility's operator, First Energy Generation Corp.
Durbin pointed out the station can generate 451 megawatts of electricity, but only for 10 hours a day. It then takes 14 hours to pump water back up to the perfectly round upper reservoir, about the size of a small NASCAR track, to start the process again, he said.
The station also uses more electricity than it generates, so at a glance it might seem absurd. But for those in the business of keeping the lights on, it's a valuable asset that helps the utility make money and meet the fluctuating demands of the power grid, noted civil engineer Rick Miller, who works for the Nebraska-based firm HDR Inc.
(Excerpt) Read more at altoonamirror.com ...
why don’t they just use a gas generator? It doesn’t use as much power and can be switched on when ever needed.
The Seneca project has been on the planning boards for about 20 years. It was originally planned when gas was expensive and old coal plants were getting expensive to run to supply electricity during peak demand periods (usually during the day)
The idea was to run your efficient big plants at 100% round the clock and use excess production from the large modern plants to pump up the reservoir at night. Then run the hydro generators during the day to produce for peak demand.
What this article is doing is trying to produce interest in completing the project as a Green Technology project.
A big advantage money saver. A peaking plant must be manned 24/7.
Too Roman.
It’s not a scam, it’s a battery. And yes, it’s a net energy consumer because all forms of storing and transferring power are lossy.
The reason rates are higher during the day is because of demand. The whole point of a “battery” system like this is be able to supply additional power during peak demand periods without having to increase the generating capacity of power plants.
***The station also uses more electricity than it generates, ****
These have been around for quite a while. The way it works is when you have a “peak” demand, the cost of electricity goes way up. The gates are opened and the water flows through the turbines to produce this electricity to take advantage of this high cost time.
At night, when the price of electricity falls, the pumps are turned on allowing the water to be pumped back to the upper pond at a lower cost. The electricity to operate these pumps comes from other power plant sources.
The turbines produce high cost electricity during the day.
The pumps use MORE low cost electricity to pump the water back to the upper pond at night.
An example ~ your A/C is running. You are not running in and out and nobody is at home, yet, you don't want to come home to a hot steamy jungle that takes 6 hours to cool that evening. The A/C controller could switch over to a Relative Value of 10 degrees less than outside ambient rather than running on the Absolute Value of 70 degrees.
Your washer/dryer could easily be regulated to deal with variable power requirements depending on humidity levels (hey, mine already does eh).
All of our expensive LED lighting systems could be made even more efficient with simple motion detectors (turning them off when no one is around).
And so forth.
You have two choices: enough generating power to cover peak loads, which only last a few hours, or less generating power and a method of storing excess power for peak periods.
My bet is that this is cheaper than building another partially plant that would be idle most of the time.
Plus, you don't just turn plants on and off. You have to keep them idling during the off-peak hours.
This isn't new, and it's not rocket science.
A large percentage of what you pay per kilowatt is for the infrastructure used to produce it. This type of power storage allows the utilities to have smaller generation facilities which are cheaper to build and run at higher efficiency. The reason electricity is cheaper at night is because there is less demand at that time because there is excess generation capacity. This operation solves a problem. Without it not everyone would be able to turn on all their air conditioners at once during the day because it would overload the system.
As far as profit goes... this is a perfect example of capitalism at work. Entrepreneurs and investors who solve problems and allow others to live in comfort should be rewarded.
The current green movement possibly started with the defeat of ConEd’s application to build a pump storage system above the Hudson River on Storm King mountain. In the 70’s the Federal Power commission denied them a license to build after being sued by Historic Hudson Society and others. This one project could have offered relief to millions of users in the East and reduced their electric bills..
Funny how Al Gore never mentions that fact.
I think that you did not mean to respond to me. I just pointed out that it is not new technology. I understand it clearly and do not think that it is crazy in any way.
The company is based in Nebraska, there is not much grade there, you may be talking about diverting water from another state to get adequate elevation.
IIRC it is three KW to pump up, and two KW generation on the way down. Therefore the cost per KW nightime had to be 2/3 or less the cost per KW daytime.
The math worked in 1975, not sure now with fairly efficient gas fired combined cycle generation widely installed.
I read about 50% of a power plant's output is lost as waste heat at the plant. Instead of just pumping water up I wonder if some of it could be airlifted up using large evaporation ponds putting the waste heat to use. Natural solar heating would help too. When electricity is used in the city it also turns into waste heat. Possibly spraying water in a city would reduce the urban heat island effect while increasing rainfall and hydro power downwind. Adding nucleotides to the air would induce cloud formation providing shade and cooling for large areas during the day, and when wanted could provide a blanket effect at night.
Exactly right. A peaker plant operates on the marginal rate difference, essentially time-shifting energy from off-peak production to times when demand (and thus wholesale cost) is highest. I’d like to see analysis of a wind-hydro peaker, in which wind would be used to pump water into a reservoir which would then be used to drive a hydro to produce electricity when needed. It seems vastly simpler and with much greater capacity than electrical methods, e.g. capacitor or battery banks.
The future is yours:
For $18.97 you can install a programmable thermostat. You can come home to a cool house without paying to cool it all day.
No.
The Nebraska company is HDR, an Omaha-based consulting engineering firm for hydroelectric generation.
http://www.hdrinc.com/locations/united-states/nebraska
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