Can Hoover Dam Become a Giant $3B Battery? (cleantechnica.com)

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power wants to spend $3 billion to pump back the water that's flowing through Hoover Dam -- so it can flow through again later, during periods of peak energy demand. This generates a net profit for the dam's operators -- the pumping stations are powered by cheap solar and wind energy, while the dams are currently operating at just 20% of their capacity. An anonymous reader quotes Clean Technica: The problem is that California has so much renewable energy available now, thanks in large measure to aggressive state mandated policies, that much of it is "constrained." That's utility industry speak for having to give it away or simply let it go to waste. In some cases, utilities in California actually pay other utility companies to take the excess electricity off their hands.

Why not store it all in some of Elon Musk's grid scale batteries? Simply put, pumped hydroelectric storage is cheaper than battery storage, at least for now. Lazard, the financial advisory and asset management firm, estimates utility scale lithium-ion batteries cost 26 cents per kilowatt-hour compared with 15 cents for pumped hydro storage. "Hoover Dam is ideal for this," Kelly Sanders, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Southern California tells the New York Times. "It's a gigantic plant. We don't have anything on the horizon as far as batteries of that magnitude."

Comments

Interesting idea

[Registered Coward v2]

Hoover Dam wasn't originally intended to produce power, it was for water management, such as flood control, supplying LA with a consistent water supply, and irrigation. Power was added later. I would guess pumped storage would have to balance the water management needs so it's not like you can just raise the water level and keep it there.

Re:Interesting idea

[Anonymous Coward]

That was also prior to the CA aqueduct along I5. CA's water management is much more developed than it was back then. This idea is very straightforward, top off the battery with the "wasted" power and use it when needed.

Any amount is a net gain, it doesn't have to charge it back "all the way"

Re:Interesting idea

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not true. The power plant was built along with the original structure. The dam was completed in 1935. In 1936 the water level in Lake Mead became high enough to begin power generation. Additional generators were added in 37 and 39. The final generator was added in 61, which might be where your confusion comes from.

Re:Interesting idea

[Goldsmith]

The Colorado River has many dams. Not very far down the river from Hoover Dam is Davis Dam and Lake Mohave. By pumping water from Lake Mohave to Lake Mead (behind Hoover Dam), they would be releasing the same amount of water while storing excess solar power.

This is a very unusual situation. You have two large reservoir forming dams next to each other on a large river cutting through a desert with great solar power generating potential.

You need excess power AND water

[Nkwe]

Sounds like due to renewables there is at times extra power that can be stored (by pumping water uphill.) You also need excess water to be pumped uphill. Does California also have this excess water? When you consider the value of the water, does it still make economic sense to put it back behind the dam? I don't know the answer or have an opinion on this, but I do keep hearing about water shortages in California, so it makes me wonder.

Sorry, but I have to say it

[R3d M3rcury]

"That's one dam expensive battery."

I'll go home now.

Perfect solution: Boil the ocean

[goombah99]

Use the waste heat from bitcoin mining to boil the ocean. the covection will carry water up into the hills providing rain to prevent fires and the ground water will end up in lake mead where it can be used to make electricity to power the mining systems

Re:Well sort of, but you're missing a key point

[sjames]

They got the cost right, but it's a cost for capacity not a cost added on to each KWh delivered.

Battery cheaper by time they finish

[RhettLivingston]

When looking at something of this scale, you can't use today's prices. I found several estimates of the rate of decline of cost in battery storage over the next few years and even the conservative ones put it at 70% of today's prices in 5 years. Since pumped storage is a very mature technology, it is unlikely to experience any decline.

The 15 vs 26 cent comparison in the article amounts to pumped storage being roughly 60% of the cost of battery storage right now. So, in roughly 7 years, the two should cross. And that doesn't take into account the likelihood of big advancements in utility scale flow battery storage which is likely going to replace lithium because it is not an application that cares about density or weight of the battery system so much as cost.

The likelihood of a project of this magnitude gaining all of its approvals and being completed in 7 years is slim to none.

This is just an attempt to slip some more billions into the old-money major construction industry.

It would be better to build much smaller scale projects with batteries placed closer to demand points. They would start coming online much sooner and each year the new projects can adapt to the latest, most cost-effective technologies. If you spread that same $3 billion over 15 years of battery buildout, the cost of the ones you're building near the end will be much less than that 15 cent per kWH mark and balance out the cost of today's expenditures. In addition, you'll be providing service within the first year. Mega projects always get eaten up by increased costs due to delays. A battery approach actually ends up having a decreased cost with delays.

Re:Well sort of, but you're missing a key point

[blindseer]

I've got a Chevy Citation that I'm going to use to run your stupid face over with. Go to wikipedo if you want.

I did go to Wikipedia, that's how I found the citation I gave in my previous post. I'm curious how you came to believe nuclear to be orders of magnitude more expensive than wind and solar. I must have missed what you saw on Wikipedia. Help me out and point to where you found what you believe you found.

You really are a useless cunt aren't you.

That may also be true, but I'd like a citation on that as well.