South Australian PHES atlas
Fig. 1. Potential PHES sites in South Australia along Flinders Ranges (Google Earth). Click here for a higher resolution image.
South Australia is widely known as being the State with the largest proportion of variable renewable electricity (wind and solar PV) within Australia. This is expected to increase into the 50-100% range in the coming years. Interconnection with other regions, demand management and local storage are needed in order to ensure stable and affordable supply into the future. Pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) is the most mature and widely deployed electricity storage technology worldwide – 97% of globally installed grid storage is pumped hydro.
Although Australia is known to be arid, there is ample water to allow the use of closed-cycle PHES systems to balance the electricity grid. We calculate the annual requirement to be less than 1% of South Australia's annual extraction from the Murray River.
These sites were found using algorithms with defined search criteria within a geographic information system (GIS) platform. This platform was used to find detailed information, such as head, reservoir areas, and storage capacity. This list is not yet exhaustive. We are also in the process of developing a cost model that will determine the least cost option for the tunnelling between two reservoirs, and therefore the location of the lower reservoir. This information will be available in future releases of the atlas.
Resources
South Australia Spreadsheet (xlsx, 95 K)
This spreadsheet contains a list of sites, and the basic characteristics of those sites. At this stage, matched lower reservoirs are not included. Head is assumed to be 400 m to allow an estimate of the potential energy storage.
The following Google Maps link provides the locations of the PHES sites (the reservoirs can be seen using the Google Earth files below):
Google Map link for reservoir locations in South Australia
Google Earth can be used to view the potential reservoirs. This software is free, and widely accessible. When used in 3-D mode with 3:1 vertical exaggeration, Google Earth provides good visualisation from any direction. This .kmz file can be loaded in the "Places" field to allow the user to visualise the potential reservoirs. These are shown with a representation of the dam walls. Clicking on a blue reservoir displays a pop-up with information about that reservoir, as does clicking on a dam wall.
South Australia .kmz file (.kmz, 1.3 M)
Please refer to our Google Earth FAQs for more information.