The adoption of Seawater Pump Storage Hydropower Systems increases the share of renewable energy production in Small Island Developing States

Journal Article (2021)
Authors

Anish Pradhan (IHE Delft Institute for Water Education)

M. Marence (IHE Delft Institute for Water Education)

M.J. Franca (TU Delft - Rivers, Ports, Waterways and Dredging Engineering, IHE Delft Institute for Water Education)

Research Group
Rivers, Ports, Waterways and Dredging Engineering
To reference this document use:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2021.05.151
More Info
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Publication Year
2021
Language
English
Research Group
Rivers, Ports, Waterways and Dredging Engineering
Volume number
177
Pages (from-to)
448-460
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2021.05.151

Abstract

In the last few decades, the energy demand is increasing globally which, given the present dependency of the energy generation on fossil fuels, results in a continuous increase in CO2 emissions. In an isolated electric grid system like in the SIDS, the majority of the electricity is produced by fossil fuels, therefore most of the SIDS nations are now focusing on Variable Renewable Energy sources (VREs). VREs such as wind and solar are hardly predictable and bring instabilities in the electric power system if not buffered by a storage system. Here we investigate the possibility of using Seawater Pump Storage Hydropower Systems (S-PSHS) as a renewable energy storage solution in an isolated electric grid. For this, the island of Curaçao (one of the SIDS nations) is used as proof of the concept. For detecting potential locations for the S-PSHS sites on the island, GIS application was developed. The application of this conceptual proposed solution in similar systems is straightforward and it can be easily upscaled in other geographies. The concept of using seawater for the pumped hydro project is not common in practice and it is anticipated to have technical, environmental and financial challenges which are discussed in this paper.

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