3 developers of pumped storage hydro schemes in Scotland – SSE Coire Glas 30GWh, Gilkes Earba 33GWh & ILI Balliemeanoch 45GWh – all plan to offer different longest duration of regeneration time at their intended maximum power capacity.
These developers don’t seem to have co-ordinated with each other to offer a standard duration length.
But just suppose that the National Grid, OFGEM or Government customer for grid-scale energy storage wanted to buy a total energy storage of a particular power capacity for a particular duration length.
In that case, how might these pumped storage schemes have their designs standardised for a common duration to operate so as to meet the customers’ requirements?
In answering this question I am also including my own Glasa Morie Glass 170GWh PSH scheme plan. So the total storage capacity of all 4 PSH schemes in this case would be 30+33+45+170 = 278GWh.
The locations of these PSH sites can be found numbered in the map (blue 2, 3, 5 & 6).
The next graph considers customer requirements for alternative total power capacities of 13GW or 24GW.
As we can see, with these specifications of the power capacities for each of the 4 PSH schemes, it would be possible to offer 13GW for a duration length of 21.38 hours or 24GW for 11.58 hours.
| Scaling 4 Pumped Storage Hydro Schemes for equal duration | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Duration (Hours) |
Total Power (GW) |
30GWh Coire Glas Power(GW) | 33GWh Earba Power(GW) | 45GWh Balliemeanoch Power (GW) | 170GWh Glasa Morie Glass Power(GW) |
| 21.38Hours | 13GW | 1.4GW | 1.54GW | 2.1GW | 7.95GW |
| 11.58Hours | 24GW | 2.59GW | 2.85GW | 3.88GW | 14.67GW |
By this method we can combine any number of pumped storage hydro schemes of different energy storage capacities to meet the customers’ specification for total power and length of duration.
Scottish Scientist 
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