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Power Earth

Can Hoover Dam Become a Giant $3B Battery? (cleantechnica.com) 219

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."

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Can Hoover Dam Become a Giant $3B Battery?

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  • Interesting idea (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Registered Coward v2 ( 447531 ) on Saturday July 28, 2018 @01:40PM (#57024136)
    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 (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 28, 2018 @01:47PM (#57024154)

      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 (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 28, 2018 @01:52PM (#57024176)

      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.

      • by ruddk ( 5153113 )

        But the main function of it was water management. The generators are a added bonus.
        The amount of water that can be released are set by the bureau of reclamation.

        • Re:Interesting idea (Score:5, Informative)

          by Goldsmith ( 561202 ) on Saturday July 28, 2018 @06:50PM (#57025072)

          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.

    • by Rei ( 128717 )

      Just had a realization here: converting it to pumped hydroelectric might be a boon for the downstream environment.

      There's been a number of negative consequences to the dam. It lets out water relatively steadily, so there's no longer any floods. These allow sediment buildup, both in Lake Meade, and downstream. They also have made the river more hazardous to navigate, as rockslides have built up. The deep water is the average temperature of the water year round, so there's no longer summer heat nor winter c

    • You're quite right, and it's not a problem just with Hoover Dam but with any large hydro dam in the Southwest -- including Shasta, Oroville, and dozens of smaller dams. One problem is that you have to move a LOT of water to store power. Roughly, one cubic meter (one metric tonne) needs to drop 100 meters (328 feet in American) to generate one kw/hr of electricity. Pumped storage using existing dams will mean moving a lot of water and one does need to balance water usage in the generally water short South

  • In Europe, by the swiss, using surplus cheap nuclear power to pump water back in their dam and providing peak power at a premium when needed.
    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      The UK did great pumped hydro too. Its a very old idea. It just takes a better dam design and more ability to do advanced dam design.
      The other option is a dam upgrade.
  • by Nkwe ( 604125 ) on Saturday July 28, 2018 @01:52PM (#57024168)
    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.
    • by fermion ( 181285 )
      Interesting point and this is the limiting factor. Hydro batteries are the easiest way to store energy for later use. If you have a mountain available, just pump the water up the mountain, then recover the potential energy when it falls. Cheap, easy, reliable.

      My assertion would be that the water can be available. First, we are not talking about a continuous supply of water that will either be sequestered long term or wasted. For instance about a third of California water is used to either grow alfalf

      • Yes, this makes perfect sense in the right location. Mountains with the right geography, and of course building the dam flooded 100 square miles. So where you have just the right geography, and you don't mind destroying everything upstream for hundreds of square miles, at can make sense. Well, except consider Banqiao.

        As Banqiao and other dams show, you also need to be okay with destroying everything downstream for many miles. Given all those conditions, it works well. Hoover dam is one of very few places i

        • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

          by fermion ( 181285 )
          This reminds me of the argument against windmills in the Appalachia because the scenic destruction of the wind farms is greater than the scenic destruction and water contamination of mountain removal mining.

          Ot the argument against being a vegetarian since organic vegetables are more expensive than chik fil e

          None of this occurs in a vacuum, and one can't win an argument by saying a new solution is going to be destructive, unless the current solution is 100% non destructive, which nothing is because entro

      • Or you use ocean water. Available in bulk, and you only need the high reservoir as the outflow from the generators can go straight into the ocean.
    • by sjames ( 1099 )

      Hoover Dam is in Nevada. But note, the water isn't lost when it's pumped back behind the dam, it's only delayed.

      Currently, Hoover is operating at 20% capacity. It needs to stay at least at that level for the sake of water management downstream and not overflowing lake Mead. However, that doesn't mean it can't spill more during peak demand (instead of running fossil fuel plants) and pump the excess back when renewables are producing a surplus.

  • by R3d M3rcury ( 871886 ) on Saturday July 28, 2018 @01:57PM (#57024188) Journal

    "That's one dam expensive battery."

    I'll go home now.

  • "In some cases, utilities in California actually pay other utility companies to take the excess electricity off their hands."

    I don't really understand paying to get rid of surplus electricity. Isn't the point to sell electricity?

    Also is there additional room for more generators? Or to update the existing ones? I would hope generator technolofy has advanced since 1961

    • I don't really understand paying to get rid of surplus electricity. Isn't the point to sell electricity?

      No, the point is to make money.

      Because of subsidies for wind and solar there is an incentive to "sell" electricity at a negative price. Let's consider a scenario of wind and solar getting a subsidy of 5 cents per kilowatt-hour when electricity is on average costing about 10 cents per kilowatt-hour. The costs borne by wind and solar are in capital, labor, and so forth, and nothing for fuel. They want to get paid as much as they can, as often as they can. If that means paying people 2, 3, or or even 4 cen

    • Another point to add to the discussion- base load power plants are slow to change their output levels. They are designed to operate at a fairly constant level. Peaking plants are used when necessary to meet higher demand. If the demand goes below the base generation level, there's going to be extra electricity on the grid because they can't reduce the amount generated quickly. This is the "excess electricity" that needs to be sold.

    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Not when a gov makes "green" energy have extra value. That can be sold and paid for at a better "green" price.
  • 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.

    Remember when people used to talk about how nuclear would bring about a future where power was "too cheap to meter"?

    • Remember when people used to talk about how nuclear would bring about a future where power was "too cheap to meter"?

      No. I've read about it though. How old are you? I'm pretty sure those claims died out in the 1960s or 1970s. Three Mile Island and the movie China Syndrome put an end to claims of being too cheap to meter, as far as I can tell. Those were in 1979 but the protestations on nuclear power predated both by quite a margin. "Too cheap to meter" would have been in the days when Thunderbirds and Star Trek were on TV, which were visions of a nuclear powered future.

  • Now I'm about to take you through a fully functional power plant, so please, no one wander off the dam tour and please take all the dam pictures you want. Now are there any dam questions?

  • If water levels continue to drop in Lake Mead, this may really put a strain on the river and everyone down stream.

    And this plan depends on Hoover Dam continuing to have enough water to work at all. With those decreasing levels in Lake Mead, it may be necessary to pump just to keep the dam running at 20%.

    And pumping the water has to be done in a manner that protects the wildlife using the river.

    With all of that said, this "virtual battery" of energy storage beats real batteries by a longshot, IMO. Much clean

  • Have these people seen Lake Mead lately? It's down so far it's two feet from the point where everyone its water (released through the dam) will have to face automatic cut-backs. There ISN'T any "extra water" to pump back up into the lake. Not even close. The lake's been drying out for years.
  • by RhettLivingston ( 544140 ) on Saturday July 28, 2018 @03:25PM (#57024498) Journal

    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.

    • well written

      And why are there not power-hungry businesses flocking in to take advantage of the cheaper electricity. It's not as if they can't build batteries for themselves to even out the flow in exchange for lower pricing. For that matter one would think that homes and offices or even small communities would be funding small scale batteries to cut electricity costs. I could see there being all sorts of ways that the utility could incentivize others to make this kind of investment. It might even boost grid

  • If wind and solar needs storage to provide power that is inexpensive, low carbon, and reliable, then we need storage that is inexpensive, reliable and low carbon. That means we need nuclear power, because fuel is storage and uranium is a low carbon fuel.

    Here's a short (about 2 minutes) video explaining the problem:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    Here's a longer (24 minute) video explaining the problem in more detail:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    We will see an expansion of the use of nuclear power beca

    • Whatever problems people have brought up against nuclear power they have always been problems of policy, not physics.

      It always costs more to decommission a reactor than the estimates, and The People always wind up footing the bill instead of the corporate cocks who made all the money. Nuclear power is never too cheap to meter, which is the lie which was used to sell it to The People. And both of those things are due to physics. You fail again, nuclear playboy.

      • Every nation that has nuclear power also has a national fund to decommission them, paid for by the utilities that own the nuclear power plants. If the amount of money in these funds is insufficient to pay for the decommissioning then that is a failure in government policy to properly tax the utilities for this fund, or a failure of the government to control the costs of decommissioning.

        Government estimates not meeting demands is not a failure of physics, that's a failure of government and policy to create

  • The short answer is no.

    The long answer is that a battery is a collection of chemical cells connected together to behave like a larger cell, so no, it cannot.

    What's wrong with calling it energy storage? Isn't this supposed to be news for nerds, not oversimplifications for morons?

I THINK THEY SHOULD CONTINUE the policy of not giving a Nobel Prize for paneling. -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988.

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