Pumped storage development to play a bigger role in promoting energy transition

Despite being a latecomer in pumped storage development, China has managed to top the world in the sector following consistent efforts of more than 50 years, experts said on Tuesday.

They also expressed high expectations to see the industry continue to boom in the country and play an increasingly bigger role in promoting the country’s energy transition.

Pumped storage power stations pump water to reservoirs at higher locations by using surplus green electricity during off-peak consumption periods, then regenerate to meet emerging power needs.

Addressing an event on the sidelines of the 28th International Commission on Large Dams Congress and the 93rd Annual Meeting in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, Zhang Zongliang, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering, stressed pumped storage as the most mature energy storage technology with the longest life span.

It offers an effective solution to address the intermittency, volatility and decentralization of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power, he said.

China constructed its first pumped storage power station in 1968, nearly 90 years after the world’s first facility was established in Zurich, Switzerland. But China has experienced significant progress in the sector, he said.

By the end of 2020, China ranked first in the world in both operating and under-construction capacity, he said. With implementation of the Medium- and Long-Term Development Plan for Pumped Storage in 2021, the industry has been further boosted.

By the end of 2024, China had a total pumped storage capacity of 58.69 million kW, accounting for about 30 percent of the global total, and the capacity under construction reached around 200 million kW, he said.

Moreover, China has established a comprehensive industrial system and specialized development model, covering standard formulation, planning and design, engineering construction, equipment, he said.

The country, for instance, has developed innovative integrated technologies for intelligent pumped-storage planning, which helps enable scientific and efficient layouts of such facilities.

Zhu Guojin, chairman of Beijing Engineering Cooperation, a company under PowerChina Hydropower Development Group Co Ltd, depicted a magnificent picture of the future development of pumped storage in China.

Against the backdrop of the rapid global transition toward renewable energy, the installed capacity of wind and solar power around the world has kept a growing momentum, contributing 86 percent of the global newly-added renewable energy capacity in 2023, he said.

By 2025, energy storage technologies such as pumped storage will be able to meet 35 percent of global grid regulation demand, and the demand is expected to soar to several dozen times its current level by 2050, he said, quoting date from the International Energy Agency.

China has planed to increase its pumped storage capacity to 120 million kW by 2030, with an average annual growth rate of 15 percent, significantly higher than the global average of 3.7 percent, he said.

“In the next 5 to 10 years, China’s pumped storage industry is expected to enter a critical phase of large-scale, intelligent, and market-oriented development,” he said.