Month: August 2020

Series Introduction I’ve stated that the reason it’s possible to locate bags at somewhat different elevations within a storage field is the transient valves—remote-controlled shutoff valves in the feed tubes for every bag. How does that work? I’ll look at Read More

Series Introduction In a recent post, I mentioned that the water storage aspect of EPS is very unconventional, while the rest is very conventional. Those two aspects are also very different in terms of the water pressures they deal with, Read More

Series Introduction The EPS system divides neatly into two subsets. One subset is unconventional: the water storage systems at the top and bottom. These systems are different from normal reservoirs in every way. The other subset is the powerhouse components Read More

Series Introduction A real-world example will make it much easier to visualize what the numbers are trying to tell us. At this point, we don’t need to design a full system down to the smallest details. I would like to Read More

Series Introduction This post will review some basic facts about energy storage in general, and pumped storage in particular, because these concepts will come up throughout the later sections. Quantifying Storage First, I have to talk about how energy storage Read More

Series Introduction The Gordon Butte pumped storage design that we looked at in the previous post represents the current state of the art. Let’s continue into uncharted territory. Suppose we want pumped storage in a hot, arid climate, where evaporation Read More

Series Introduction Unsurprisingly, hydropower—the generation of electricity from water flowing in a river—preceded pumped hydroelectric storage, which is the use of water to store electricity generated from some other source than the river itself. The first commercial hydropower plant was Read More

Series Introduction Now we can talk about how our water tanks and other components will be placed on the site, and connected together to form a complete system. Here’s an idealized system diagram, in cross-section: Typically there will be more Read More