Enhanced-Pumped-Storage: Combining pumped-storage in a yearly storage cycle with dams in cascade in Brazil

Julian David Hunt, Marcos Aurélio Vasconcelos Freitas, Amaro Olímipio Pereira Junior

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

70 Scopus citations

Abstract

The new frontier for hydropower electricity generation in Brazil, the Amazon region, cannot be used for energy storage as the construction of storage reservoirs would have deep environmental and social impacts, thus run-of-the-river dams have been built instead. If Brazil still wants to generate 80% of its electricity from hydropower, there is the need to increase the country's energy storage capacity so that the excess generation coming from the dams in the Amazon region during the wet period can be used during the dry period. This article presents four ways to increase the storage capacity of a watershed. The most innovative alternative involves a large-scale pumped-storage site combined with a series of hydropower dams in cascade, which could store energy by pumping water to a new reservoir during the wet period and generate energy by releasing the stored water during the dry period. Even though pumped storage schemes have an average efficiency of around 75%, it has been calculated that the combination of a pumped storage site and a series of hydroelectric dams in cascade can increase the overall storage efficiency up to 90% and double the storage capacity of a watershed. This scheme was called EPS (Enhanced-Pumped-Storage).
Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)513-523
Number of pages11
JournalEnergy
Volume78
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 15 2014
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Generated from Scopus record by KAUST IRTS on 2023-09-23

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Energy
  • Pollution

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