Context: Budget 2024-25 promised that “a policy for promoting pumped storage projects will be brought out for electricity storage and facilitating smooth integration of the growing share of renewable energy with its variable and intermittent nature.”

What is Pumped storage?

• Pumped storage hydropower (PSH) is a type of hydroelectric energy storage. It is a configuration of two water reservoirs at different elevations that can generate power as water moves down from one to the other (discharge), passing through a turbine.

• The system also requires power as it pumps water back into the upper reservoir (recharge).

• PSH acts similarly to a giant battery, because it can store power and then release it when needed.

Why Pumped storage technology is required?

• Pumped storage hydropower (PSH) is one of the most-common and well-established types of energy storage technologies and currently accounts for 96% of all utility-scale energy storage capacity in the United States.

• PSH facilities store and generate electricity by moving water between two reservoirs at different elevations.

• Vital to grid reliability from the pumped storage hydropower fleet includes about 22 gigawatts of electricity-generating capacity and 550 gigawatt-hours of energy storage with facilities in every region of the country.

Benefits

• PSH provides energy storage and other grid services that can help to integrate additional renewable resources, such as wind and solar, with the power system.

• PSH is also the only currently commercialized technology for long-duration storage, which may become increasingly valuable as the power system evolves to include more variable renewables.