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Electricity storage is such a hot topic these days! There seems to be no end to the variety of new and old technologies being developed. Using, sand, concrete blocks, radioactive diamonds, and of course the big one: lithium ion batteries. But did you know that over 90% of current electricity storage is from a much less trendy storage technology? Pumped hydro is an energy storage solution that’s been around for over 100 years, but is in my opinion set for a resurgence in coming years as we need to add long duration energy storage to support electricity grids with large proportions of variable renewables.

Bookmarks:
00:00 Intro
01:43 The current electricity storage landscape - How much is there and how much do we need?
02:52 What is Pumped Hydro and how does it work?
04:45 Looking at Pumped Hydro vs Lithium Ion Batteries
05:37 Challenges that slows down pumped hydro development
05:44 Problem #1 - Financial
06:45 Problem #2 - Construction Duration
07:56 Problem #3 - Suitable Locations
09:08 New approaches to pumped hydro - Off-River and Modular
10:40 Is it actually difficult to find a suitable location for pumped hydro? - Global pumped hydro atlas
13:26 Why isn't pumped hydro as popular as lithium-ion batteries?
13:54 Pumped hydro projects to keep an eye out for
15:40 Summary and Rosie's thoughts
15:58 Thanks to Brilliant for sponsoring this video!

A huge thank you to Andrew Blakers from the Australian National University for the information he shared with me and feedback on an early script draft!

The title of this video was suggested by one of the Engineering with Rosie Patreon team. I was really struggling to think of a clickable yet accurate title, and Peter stepped up to the challenge! Big thanks to Peter and the others who suggested other good titles.

If you would like to help develop the Engineering with Rosie channel, you could consider joining the Patreon community, where there is a chat community (and Patreon-only Discord server) about topics covered in the videos and suggestions for future videos and production quality improvements. https://www.patreon.com/engineeringwithrosie

Sources:
CNESA - Electricity Storage Market
http://en.cnesa.org/latest-news/2020/5/28/cnesa-global-energy-storage-market-analysis-2020q1-summary

IHA - Pumped Hydro
https://www.hydropower.org/

Our World in Data - Global Energy Consumption and Generation
https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption

PV Magazine - Energy Storage for Zero-Carbon Future
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/01/24/us-zero-carbon-future-would-require-6twh-of-energy-storage/

IEA - Energy Storage
https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-storage

BNEF - Battery Storage Capacity
https://www.edie.net/bnef-global-battery-storage-capacity-to-grow-20-times-over-by-2030/

Greentech Media - Price of Li-ion vs Pumped Hydro
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/pumped-hydro-moves-to-retain-storage-market-leadership

RE100 Group ANU - Global Pumped Hydro Atlas
https://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/global/

Our World in Data - Electricity Mix
https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix

This video was sponsored by Brilliant