Hoover dam as giant battery - Fuel Economy, Hypermiling, EcoModding News and Forum

California98Civic · 07-28-2018, 10:54 PM

Your EV is only as clean as the source of its energy:

"The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, an original operator of the Hoover Dam when it was erected in the 1930s, wants to equip it with a $3 billion pipeline and a pump station powered by solar and wind energy. The pump station, downstream, would help regulate the water flow through the dam’s generators, sending water back to the top to help manage electricity at times of peak demand. The net result would be a kind of energy storage — performing much the same function as the giant lithium-ion batteries being developed to absorb and release power."

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...T.nav=top-news

jjackstone · 07-29-2018, 12:42 AM

Makes sense to me. Other than initial expense, I've been wondering why they havent't just added generators to the down side of the canal just to charge battery storage. One would think that if solar and/or wind with battery storage is now on par with building new plants that it should be cheap enough to insert a couple generators and charge battery storage. JJ

freebeard · 07-29-2018, 02:06 AM

I like this a lot. I mentioned it at https://ecomodder.com/forum/showthre...tml#post574720.

Reddit points to the NYT article, but one comment said:

Quote:

The article says that the dam already only operates at ~20% of its max capacity do avoid flooding the downstream areas. That means that during high demand they already can’t produce any more power by letting more water through, so presumably they are increasing the maximum production capacity with this project by bypassing the areas that flood and dropping the water out beyond them.

If I interpret this correctly, the total power produced goes up; or at least the % of theoretical maximum goes up.

cRiPpLe_rOoStEr · 07-29-2018, 09:07 AM

That's interesting to say the least. Maybe not as efficient as using solar energy directly or to store it on batteries, but simply avoiding them altogether might decrease the risk of a haz-mat incident in case of something going bad.

oil pan 4 · 07-29-2018, 12:40 PM

The power to do it will be coming from west texas and eastern NM.
To quote my self,

Quote:

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

[California], Just load all your money on a train in send it out this way.

ksa8907 · 07-29-2018, 05:47 PM

There was a podcast recently that I listened to which discussed this. Not really a new idea, just being done again.

http://one.npr.org/i/620288114:620349298

Apparently has efficiencies roughly as much as a chemical battery. The podcast also discusses the issue of grid balancing and why.

samwichse · 07-29-2018, 06:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

To quote my self,

Creating pumped hydro storage on the cheap by using an existing facility, buying dirt cheap peak power production and time-shifting it to expensive peak load times is a win for everyone.

Your attitude mystifies me.

oil pan 4 · 07-29-2018, 07:39 PM

It it doesn't benefit the end user.
California just needs to build their own power plants.
Then there are no tranamission to storage to transmission losses.
Storage is what you do when you have more power then you know what to do with due to certain uncontrollable conditions. Otherwise it's just a bandaid.
California doesn't have a surplus of power they buy it up from neighboring states.
I look forward to California pipe dreaming up more ways to use Texas and new Mexicos surplus wind power.
Because of that I'm all for it. The best part about it is people in California appear to think this is a great idea.

3 billion dollars isn't cheap. It's actually a waste of money considering it generates 0 net power.
They would be better off finding another 4 billion dollars and building a AP1000.

ksa8907 · 07-29-2018, 08:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

It it doesn't benefit the end user.
California just needs to build their own power plants.
Then there are no tranamission to storage to transmission losses.
Storage is what you do when you have more power then you know what to do with due to certain uncontrollable conditions. Otherwise it's just a bandaid.
California doesn't have a surplus of power they buy it up from neighboring states.
I look forward to California pipe dreaming up more ways to use Texas and new Mexicos surplus wind power.
Because of that I'm all for it. The best part about it is people in California appear to think this is a great idea.

3 billion dollars isn't cheap. It's actually a waste of money considering it generates 0 net power.
They would be better off finding another 4 billion dollars and building a AP1000.

Maybe I'm missing something, regardless of what state of is in, if there is excess renewable power isn't it a good idea to maximize its use? Even if its inefficient to send the power, store it, and then generate it again as hydro, unless the loss was huge I would think it is overall beneficial.

samwichse · 07-29-2018, 09:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ksa8907

Maybe I'm missing something, regardless of what state of is in, if there is excess renewable power isn't it a good idea to maximize its use? Even if its inefficient to send the power, store it, and then generate it again as hydro, unless the loss was huge I would think it is overall beneficial.

Well, someone gets it.