Britain's biggest rechargeable battery

Many sustainable sources of electricity are highly variable, most notably solar & wind.

By contrast, some non-sustainable sources of electricity, have little ability to vary their output – most notably nuclear & coal. This is often represented as highly desirable, “base load”.

To balance electricity supply with demand as it occurs, a power source which can be quickly varied is required.

What coal, nuclear, solar & wind have in common is their unsuitability for this purpose.

A sustainable electricity source eminently suited to this purpose is hydro-electricity – water running down hill used to turn turbines, which drive generators to produce electricity. Case in point, the Dinorwig hydro power station in Elidir Mountain, North Wales, can go from zero to 1.32 gigaWatts in 12 seconds, to match rising demand.

Dinorwig, in common with many other hydro installations can also store electricity by pumping water uphill in times of oversupply, such as from solar on sunny days, or from coal or nuclear in the middle of the night. Such a system is called “pumped hydro”.



The Register
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/16/geeks_guide_electric_mountain/

Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station / Electric Mountain Elidir Mountain slopes Llyn Peris reservoir smaller higher Marchlyn Mawr reservoir up in the hills dropping two reservoirs one of Britain’s biggest post-war industrial projects Dinorwig pumped storage power station mountain effectively a monster battery power is stored pumping water from Llyn Peris to Marchlyn Mawr at night generated by letting it flow back down at times of peak demand Dinorwig designed supplement Britain’s national grid station First Hydro Company owned by Engie and Mitsui fastest installations of its kind peak output of 1.728GW Wales power station massive industrial equivalent uninterruptible power supply Dinorwig through visitor centre Electric Mountain Llanberis other side of the valley Snowdonia national park Dinorwig power lines underground power station publicly owned Central Electricity Generating Board 10 miles of tunnels central hall six valve units National Grid Britain’s power supply analyse television schedules breaks in popular television programmes TV pick-up in power demand coal and nuclear power stations take hours to increase output solar tidal wind power Pumped storage stations Dinorwig designed specifically to cope with spikes in demand power station power-flushes lake through a Welsh mountain ramp valley power station site mountain station travel downhill tunnel steeply quickly Francis reversible fixed-speed turbine magnet magnetic repulsion generate electricity industrial scale cavern six enormous water slides flowing artificial cave main inlet valves Dinorwig six turbine units giant taps water upper reservoir flows gently sloping tunnel falls 450 metres 1,476ft vertically sloping tunnel speeding it up manifold six pipes turbine two 16 tonne yellow counterweights climb a metal staircase turbine hall power station Francis reversible fixed-speed turbines bigger casings turbine made by Markhams of Chesterfield British industry turbine hall vast scale internal floors Dinorwig Dinorwig recovers 76 per cent of the energy it uses to pump the water up the pipes at night 76% efficient Dinorwig’s construction mountain above the power station uphill Snowdon Pass of Llanberis power station Electric Mountain working power station station caverns machinery Dinorwig British engineering history /