Pumped storage hydropower to bloom in China

'Promising' industry to play key role in helping nation achieve green goals

With increasing use of wind and solar power in China, market prospects of pumped storage hydropower are more promising and could generate multi-billion dollar business, industry experts said.

Increasing pumped storage hydropower capacity is vital for promoting the green energy transition in China, responding to extreme situations and ensuring energy security, said Peng Caide, chief engineer with the China Renewable Energy Engineering Institute, a think tank under China's National Energy Administration.

Developing energy storage is an important step in China's transition from fossil fuels to a renewable energy mix, while mitigating the impact of new energy's randomness, volatility, intermittence on the grid and at the same time managing power supply and demand is also key, he said.

"With increasing use of wind and solar power, the market prospect of power storage is very promising," Peng said.

Renewable energy accounts for an ever-increasing share of the market, and it is expected the maximum peak-valley difference of the power system will exceed 1 billion kilowatts by 2035. A new electrical power system with new energy as the mainstay of the power system, in turn, will have higher criteria for pumped storage hydropower, he added.

Peng said China has substantial potential to tap pumped storage hydropower capacity, as it only accounts for 1.4 percent of the country's power system, far behind the average of 10 percent in developed countries.

He suggests coming up with a batch of large-sized pumped storage hydropower in regions where nuclear and new energy were developed since this would achieve a new model of complementary and win-win bundling development.

Pumped storage hydropower is the most common type of energy storage in use today. It saves excess power by using it to pump water from a lower to an upper reservoir at night when electricity demand is low, and releasing it to generate power during the day when demand is high.

China's National Energy Administration (NEA) in September issued a middle and long-term development plan for the country's pumped storage hydropower sector covering the period from 2021 to 2035, eyeing an expansion in China's pumped storage hydropower volume to 62 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) at the end of 2025, as part of efforts to boost clean energy and reach carbon emission reduction goals.

The development plan said 120 million kWh of pumped storage hydropower will enter service by 2030 and multiple pumped storage hydropower companies will be formed by 2035, while also enhancing the protection of natural resources to ensure sustainable development and create social capital to boost local communities, it said.

CITIC Securities forecast that development of new types of power storage and pumped-storage hydroelectricity is set for explosive growth during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25).

Lin Boqiang, head of the China Institute for Studies in Energy Policy at Xiamen University, said pumped hydro energy storage as a significant technology and basic equipment to support new power systems will see an increase in its market share as it is becoming cost competitive. It is also advanced in technology development, which comes against the backdrop that solar and wind energy are taking up more in power generation under China's green commitment goals.

Power storage provides uninterrupted supply, maintains an efficient power flow and is more than ever prominent in China's transition to green energy, although renewable power sources can fluctuate with weather conditions, he said.

China aims for renewable power to account for more than 50 percent of its total electricity generation capacity by 2025, up from 42 percent at present.

The nation now sees 52.3 GW of pumped hydro storage under construction or planned and is by far the largest contributor of Asia-Pacific energy companies, which have approximately 71 gigawatts of pumped hydro energy storage projects in the planning or construction stage at the start of 2021, said IHS Markit's power assets tracking service.

In addition to State Grid Corp of China, the largest power provider in the country, and many other operators who have aggressive pumped storage plans, local governments are also stepping up efforts to promote the development of power storage.

After Shanxi province started to receive the first batch of applications for new energy plus power storage demonstration projects in August, Hebei province also vowed to push forward construction of power storage projects besides electricity generation plants and actively promote a proper distribution of power storage system on grids in the same month.

The province also promised steps to promote cost cuts and large-scale commercial application of lithium-ion battery projects.