Month: July 2009

Generation of electricity by the difference in height between two water reservoirs. The water flows down from the upper reservoir to the lower reservoir via pipelines that activate electricity generation turbines. The pumping of the water from the lower reservoir to the upper reservoir is undertaken by these same turbines activated by an electric pump. The concept is to use the electric pumps during the cheap electricity tariffs during the off-peak hours and generate electricity via the flow during high cost peak hours. There are 350 pumped storage electricity facilities in the world today. The advantage of pumped electricity especially lies in the fact that it can provide electricity immediately upon demand, such as if a generation units or grid system crashes and it thus has great advantage in the planning of electricity facilities. In addition, when the electricity dispatcher has pumped storage electricity at his disposal it enables him to reduce the need to buy fossil fuels for peak electricity use, as electricity from pumped storage can be supplied within only 70 seconds compared to 30 minutes required to start up a natural gas turbine and between 1-3 hours to start up a CCGT. A pumped storage facility can increase production at a rate of 5 MWs per second.

Established under the Electricity Sector Law 1996 with the function to set electricity rates and the methods for adjusting them and the criteria for the quality of service provided by IEC