Lake Onslow Pumped Hydro a goer.

[nzoomed]

Is this the same technology where they use excess power to pump water back into the lake during low grid demands so as to re-coup some energy back when its needed?
from an efficiency standpoint I would like to see some figures, its still costing power to pump the water back up, and would obviously use more energy to do that than what you get back, but if its electricity that would otherwise be wasted, I guess it makes sense, I guess the dollar for dollar investment needs to be taken into consideration on what it would take to make it a financially viable option.

Personally I think we need to diversify our energy needs more and we rely far too heavily on hydro.
What will our energy demands be going forward with the rise of EV's? There will need to be an incentive to charge vehicles during off peak times to balance grid loads, among other things.
El Nino weather patterns favour wind power really well, but they can be utterly useless when there is no wind. Im quite interested to see the potential that tidal power could offer, its a constant energy source that will never be depleted and is there 24/7. So far no one has developed it on such a large scale, but could be a good thing for Kiwis to develop, we have alot of clever people here!

The workings and economics of pumped hydro explained well here:



Also from discussion I've read on Newsroom: "In sum, Onslow is unique in that it would effectively meet all three objectives of the so-called energy trilemma by improving security of supply, reducing electricity prices and lowering emissions. It is rare in electricity markets for proposed solutions to address all three aspects of the energy trilemma simultaneously." https://pce.parliament.nz/media/ndudvpxt...rategy.pdf

Presently it frustrates me that every electricity outage story prompts an attempt to blame the added load on our grid of (incentivised) EVs but the government stubbornly sits on its hands in regards to offering any incentive for those of us who are addressing the problem of supply in our own DIY approach by installing PV and home battery storage. The Lake Onslow scheme would provide stability to our grid supply and wholesale power prices while also being additional storage for exported domestic and excess utility scale PV installations. Incidentally large numbers of EVs also present their own grid storage solution by way of Vehicle to Grid technology. This is very much in its infancy in NZ, AU and UK but is likely to gain popularity and economic viability as the technology and home infrastructure required mature.

To suggest that the answer lies in bringing a lot more solar and wind onstream as National's Nicola Willis is is very poorly thought through as to be able to address peak demand on a daily and longer term basis would entail huge amounts of this generation to cover the intermittency of generation which would result in significant oversupply at times, with nowhere to store it under present infrastructure.

We have a company here in Taranaki who are presently working on a design for tidal generation but like many such projects they are having to deal with the very high maintenance issues presented in marine environments. For a large scale turbine type installation the negative effects on sea life is also problematic and has scuttled plans for such an installation in the Kaipara Harbour and also lead to the closure of a barrage system in Nova Scotia. (I was living in that area in 2004 when a whale and its mother ended up on either side of the turbine.)

Thats interseting to see, I didnt know the UK had such a system running, I know they are in europe with the likes of Germany I think.
There should be more incentives for homeowners to install solar PV systems on their homes much like they do in Australia.
I think a big issue from what ive been told is that the grid would not be able to cope with the extra load if there was a surplus amount of solar power going into the grid.
Perhaps this is true, I know a friend tells me that he is unable to put any more than 5kW or something into his street and he has a ton of panels, but no battery yet, and they want him to pay for upgrading the street if he plans to sell all his surplus generation capacity.

Regarding tidal power I would have thought maintenance and installation would be the biggest issue, I feel the issues surrounding marine life is a little overblown, are they concerned about them sucking in dolphins, etc, or just fish?
Could they not simply add some sort of screen or mesh on the intake to stop large objects getting sucked in?