Hydro in Europe: Powering Renewables - Full Report - Eurelectric

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In countries where renewable energy sources to not represent the majority of the national electricity supply portfolio, pumped storage hydropower is not considered as renewable, since it is a net energy consumer due to its pumping functions. Also its efficiency rate is slightly lower (usually about 70%-75%). Yet, believing that pumpedstorage power plants might increase GHG emissions is wrong. Without pumped storage in the system, many thermal power plants operate at their partial load as reserve generators in order to cope with unexpected increases in power demand or sudden loss of generating power caused by system failures. Such reserve operation compels thermal power plants to operate at a suboptimal level which results in lower efficiency and an increase of both fuel consumption and GHG emissions. If pumped storage is added to the electricity system, reserve operation of thermal power plants is no longer necessary. Thus, pumped storage contributes to reducing GHG emissions from the system. A study by Dr. F. C. Aris demonstrated that in the United Kingdom operation of the Dinorwig Pumped Storage Power Station (330 MW x 6 units) contributed to annual savings of SO2 emissions of between 7,136 to 16,177 tons (0.45 to 1 percent of all UK power station production) and allows a reduction in NOX emissions between 123 and 1,264 tons. 3.5.2 Hydropower provides the most reliable services while showing the highest energy payback ratio Energy payback ratio refers to a ratio of energy produced during the normal life span of a power plant divided by the energy required to build, maintain and fuel the generating equipment. The larger the value is, the better the energy system is. Hydropower has the best performance with respect to the energy payback ratio. During its lifetime a hydropower plant produces more than 200 times the energy needed to build, maintain and operate it. It is illustrated by figure 15. 42
Fig. 15: Hydropower in the power generation options and respective energy payback ratios Source: Energy Policy, 2002. p. 1276 3.5.3 Hydropower is the most affordable renewable energy source Besides showing the highest energy efficiency rate and the best GHG performance, hydropower also is the most affordable renewable energy options as illustrated by the following figure 16 which presents the levelized costs of energy for selected commercially availabe renewable energy technologies 43
Page 1 and 2: Hydro in Europe: Powering Renewable
Page 3 and 4: The Union of the Electricity Indust
Page 5 and 6: TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION..
Page 7 and 8: 1. INTRODUCTION Hydropower is a mat
Page 9 and 10: Chapter 3 outlines the basic charac
Page 11 and 12: Actual generation in 2009, TWh 140
Page 13 and 14: Currently installed pumped storage
Page 15 and 16: 2.3. Pumped storage as the battery
Page 17 and 18: GWh 10000 1000 100 10 1 1 2 4 6 7 8
Page 19 and 20: limited capacities and are often di
Page 21 and 22: of this chapter, make this work wor
Page 23 and 24: output increases every morning and
Page 25 and 26: plants are designed to use either a
Page 27 and 28: There are two types of storage hydr
Page 29 and 30: Fig. 13 Illustration of the operati
Page 31 and 32: Pumped storage facilities work as a
Page 33 and 34: Table 4 highlights some advantages
Page 35 and 36: the NORDEL system and to connection
Page 37 and 38: - controlling reactive power motion
Page 39 and 40: Even though the permit process fore
Page 41: over 50 valleys along the west coas
Page 45 and 46: Fig. 17 Greenhouse Gas Emissions pe
Page 47 and 48: BOX 1 - FRANCE - A HYDROPOWER PROJE
Page 49 and 50: The long life span of a hydro plant
Page 51 and 52: Plans (NREAPs), drawn by the member
Page 53 and 54: and for the development of strategi
Page 55 and 56: o share existing communication mate
Page 57 and 58: As a mature technology, pumped stor
Page 59 and 60: 5. Hydropower is the only large-sca
Page 61 and 62: More must be done NOW to fully expl
Page 63 and 64: Glossary Ancillary services Service
Page 65 and 66: Annex 1 Methodological consideratio

Hydro in Europe: Powering Renewables - Full Report - Eurelectric

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