April 2022
- China opened the world's largest pumped hydro storage plant to make the Winter Olympics "green and clean". The $3bn (RMB18.96bn), 3.6GW Fengning Pumped Storage Power Station in Hebei Province will provide 600MW of electricity to Beijing and Zhangjiakou's host cities, avoiding the equivalent of burning 480,000 tonnes of coal a year. And also reducing CO2 emissions by 1.2 million tonnes.
- General Electric (GE) has agreed with THDC India and Megha Power. The agreement is to set up a combined pumped hydropower storage capacity of 1.5 gigawatts. The cost to set up one megawatt of such accommodation is Rs 1-1.2 crore. This means that the total project will cost Rs 1,500-1,800 crore. It compares with Rs 4 crore per MW of thermal power and Rs 2.5 to 3 crore renewable energy.
Pumped Hydroelectric Storage Turbines Market Dynamics:
Pumped-storage hydropower (PSH) is a type of hydroelectric energy storage. These systems make use of hydropower turbines to generate electricity. In this configuration, two water reservoirs at different elevations are employed to generate power as discharge water moves down through a turbine to generate electricity. Additionally, it draws power to pump recharge water to the upper reservoir. The main principle behind the operation of pumped storage power plants is both simple and ingenious.
They are used to store energy and generate hydroelectric power through turbines. Furthermore, if there is a surplus of power in the grid, the pumped storage power station switches to pumping mode, where an electric motor drives the pump turbines and pumps recharge water from a lower reservoir to a higher storage basin.
If the demand for electricity in the grid rises, water is released from the upper basin, viz pressure pipeline to the bottom. The water causes the pump turbines to rotate, which operates in turbine mode, and the water is used to drive the generators. As a result, power is generated in seconds, and electricity is then fed into the grid.
Pumped storage is economically and environmentally the most preferred form of storing energy during base-load phases while making the energy available to the grid for peaking supply needs and regulation, as a result of which the global pumped hydroelectric storage turbines is expected to witness considerable growth over the coming years
Drivers
- Increased Demand for Sustainable Energy in Power Generation Mix
The major factor driving the growth of the global pumped hydroelectric storage turbines market is the increasing share of sustainable energy in the power generation mix. Conventional energy generation sources such as coal, petrol, and natural gas contribute primarily to carbon emissions. As stakeholders in the power generation industry seek opportunities to reduce carbon footprint, they have been focusing on raising the share of renewable energy sources in the total power generation mix globally.
Renewable energy sources, especially solar, wind, hydro, and biomass, are used for electricity generation. Furthermore, the rising concerns regarding the growing carbon emissions and the efforts to curb them result in the need to increase the share of renewable energy in the power generation mix. As a result, wind, solar, hydro, biomass, and other sustainable renewable energy sources witness growth in demand as they help reduce carbon emissions.
Pumped hydroelectric storage turbines can help to meet the rising demand for electricity throughout the globe. However, the electricity demand had declined drastically due to covid-19 impact, thereby negatively impacting the hydropower generation, resulting in the limited installation of pumped hydroelectric storage turbines across the globe. Moreover, this unprecedented situation has created challenges in the technical and financial activities of the power sector.
Hence, most of the utilities across the world were forced to cut their costs, including the cost of installing any new software in their power plants, which ultimately reduced the market of pumped hydroelectric storage turbines in 2020. For instance, French electricity consumption reduced by 15% owing to the pandemic.
Generation is only provided by nuclear plants, hydropower, and other renewables in the country. The number of load variations in April 2020 doubled compared to previous years. This forced the operators to operate more flexibly, which is likely to affect the hydropower business in the coming few months due to a lack of profitability. This has directly impacted the global market.
- Rising Electricity Demand
Global energy demand has seen an exponential increase over the last few years due to rapid urbanization and a rapidly growing population across the world. Most of the energy produced across the globe is from fossil fuels, which produce harmful GHG gases on burningas per the International Energy Agency (IEA), as per the stated policies scenario, the global electricity demand is projected to grow ata rate of 2.1% per annum by 2040.
Additionally,the share of electricity in the final energy consumption is estimated to rise from 19%in 2018 to 24% in 2040.The growing population, rapid industrialization and urbanization, and increasing infrastructure developmentare a few factors that are expected to increase the global electricity demand.
Additionally, as per the United Nations, the globalpopulation is expected to reach approximately 8.5 billion and 9.7 billion by 2030 and 2050, respectively. The growth in the world’spopulation results in increased electricity demand and consumption. Hence, it can be interpreted that with the increasing electricity demand, the need for electricity infrastructure is also expected to increase.
Furthermore, according to the joint report of NITI Aayogand the Institute of Energy Economics Japan (IEEJ), under the ambitious scenario, India’s electricity demand was 805 TWh in 2012 and isexpected to rise to 5144 TWh by 2047. This is due to the increased use of electricity in residential, industrial, and transportation applications. Hence, the rising demand for electricity for power generation is expected to fuel the demand for pumped hydroelectric storage turbinesto generate electricity across the globe.
Restraints
- High Capital Requirements & Operating Cost
Hydropower generation through turbines requires high capital investments and has high operating costs. The higher capital costs are due to the larger structures, cost of wind turbines,and complex logistics of installing the towers for turbines. The costs of offshore / onshore foundations, construction, installations, and grid connection are further significantly higher as a result of which the pumped Hydroelectric storage turbine is expected to restrain during the forecast period
Furthermore, the operations and maintenance (OM) cost associated with hydropower generation accounts for 1.5 to 2 percent of the investment costs per year. Thus, the high capital requirements and operating costs involved in hydropower generation are expected to reduce the demand for pumped hydroelectric storage turbines, consequently hampering the growth of the global market during the forecast period.
Opportunities
- Hybrid & Symbiotic Concepts
Hybrid & symbiotic solutions such as the combination of pumped storage power plants integrated with wind and/or solar farms have become increasingly popular andessential for the generation and storage of clean, renewable energy along with the production of clean drinking water.
In this innovative concept of combining wind power and hydropower, the upper basin of the reservoir is integrated into the foundation of the wind turbine towers. The hybrid solutions are likely to offer a reduction in planning and infrastructure costs and environmental impact as the two technologies use the same grid connection and switchgear.
Combining the technologies will create new trading alternatives which are not possible in a pure hydro or wind farm operation. Thus, it willexpand the potential of decentralized pumped storage, thereby providing opportunities in the pumped hydroelectric storage turbines market
