https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-eco ... 50lf2.htmlThe New South Wales government plans 24 new pumped hydro projects that would provide about half of the state's demand for electricity on the hottest days and three times the power of Snowy 2.0.
It follows the NSW government's launch of a pumped hydro roadmap designed to ramp up the development of new hydro storage projects and back up the rising levels of new wind and solar generation.
The 24 proposed projects come after the federal government worked with the Australian National University to identify about 22,000 reservoirs that could be used to form around 98,000 possible pumped hydro projects around the country.
Pumped hydro works by running water from a dam downhill through a turbine to generate electricity and then using excess energy to pump it back up the hill to run through again.
The shortlisted sites could provide a total generation capacity of about 7000 megawatts. This is triple the size of the amount of generation added by Snowy 2.0 and more than double the size of the country's largest coal-fired power station, Origin's Eraring facility in NSW.
NSW Energy Minister Don Harwin said the pumped hydro storage plants will help back up the $26 billion worth of new renewable energy projects being built in the state.
“Pumped hydro delivers the long-term, utility-scale energy storage that is critical to achieving a smooth transition to renewables in NSW,” Mr Harwin said.
Sounded good until I read this ...
Well done Gladys! Tolled water now too?The state government will spend about $55 million to fund pre-investment studies and has already invited private developers to propose projects on the sites.
