Pumped Storage Systems
A presentation on Pumped Storage Systems has been given in the Town Hall Conference Room on Friday 06-01-2012. The presentation team includes Harald Kraft (Water Engineering Consultant, see: ib-kraft.de/eng/), Michael Bonke (who has studied the pumped storage systems of Ruselkraftwerke, Germany) and Toine Van Megen (who presented the relevance of pumped storage systems in the context of renewable energy). The presentation and discussion had also look at the possibilities of utilizing the Matrimandir Lake as the lower elevation
reservoir of a pumped storage system, while a high level reservoir could be made on top of a hill that is made from the soil excavated for the Matrimandir lake. In pumped storage systems electrical energy is stored in the form of water, pumped from a lower elevation water reservoir to a higher elevation. Pumped storage systems are mainly used for grid load balancing but are gaining importance with the increasing use of renewable energy sources. World-wide pumped storage capacity is 130 Giga Watts (130,000 Mega Wattes) and may grow to 200 GW by 2014.The Auroville region suffers from frequent power cuts / load shedding. This has resulted in the installation of a large numbers of inverters with lead-acid batteries and diesel generators. Auroville plans to rely (mainly) on renewable energy sources in the long term. Most renewable energy sources provide intermittent supply and therefore storage of energy is required. Pumped storage may therefore be considered as an energy storage option for Auroville. Click on the following links to download the pdf of the three presentations: 1 – Michael Bonke presentation , 2 – Toine van Megen presentation , 3 – Harald Kraft presentation
Organized Lavenir dAuroville (Auroville’s Town Development Council).
Organized Lavenir dAuroville (Auroville’s Town Development Council).