Performance and economy analysis of distributed small-scale pumped storage power station

Abstract

The installed capacity of clean energy represented by solar and wind power has increased by 77.5 times in the past 20 years. In 2019, it reached 1437GW, accounting for 35% of the total installed power generation capacity [1]. With large quantities of fluctuating renewable and new energy integrated, the power system has insufficient absorption capacity and needs more adjustable power sources. In this paper, the location limitation of centralized large-scale pumped storage power station (PSPS) is broken through and a distributed small-scale PSPS which can be widely constructed in load centers such as the east coast of China is proposed. Furthermore, the distributed small-scale PSPS is compared with large-scale PSPS and other kinds of energy storage technology in terms of installed capacity, discharge time, energy density, power density, life cycle, and per kilowatt hour (kWh) cost. The calculated results show that the energy density of distributed small-scale PSPS is about 10 times higher than that of large-scale PSPS, while the per kWh cost of the two kinds of PSPS is close. In addition, the expected life cycle of distributed small-scale PSPS is higher than that of most energy storage technologies. For example, its life cycle is 4 times longer than that of battery-type storage. In conclusion, the performance and economy of distributed small-scale PSPS are both in the good level, so it has the potential to solve the problem of new energy consumption in China.