Effects of Pumped Storage Hydro on Power Systems with Large Amount of Wind Power: A European Perspective

Abstract

The increasing capacity of power production that comes from renewable energy into the system has increased the need for a regulating, environmentally friendly production unit that is flexible enough in order to store energy and provide it into the system in case of sudden demand increase or contingency. These features fully characterize pumped-storage hydro technology, which can be a perfect complement to intermittent generation. In this thesis a model was developed in order to emulate the European power system and check the impact of pumped-storage hydro (PSH) in different aspects of it. The effects of PSH on total system costs, interconnection between countries congestion as well as on the CO2 emission mitigation were investigated in order for Europe to comply with the stringent environmental target that all countries have committed to follow. The results show that PSH can have a significant positive impact on emission and system cost reduction, but it is difficult to comment on how the system will react on congestion before further study is conducted. For instance, a CO2 reduction of up to 34.8% was observed when more PSH was introduced into the system, whereas a cost reduction between 7-8% was calculated. On the other hand, no evidence for relaxation of the load of the interconnections between countries was identified, since the loading of the lines remained within the same levels in most cases.