Pump Hydro Underground to Store Wind Power

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CEO Douglas is not applying for stimulus funding.

BlackRock Inc, an asset manager with more than $1 trillion under management, is an investor. Each 1,000 megawatt storage facility will cost $2 billion.

Riverbank CEO Douglas said the company has already had a lot of interest in power contracts, and he expects to turn this into power purchase agreements. PPAs could be used to help finance the $2 billion each 1,000 MW project costs.

“We think we can procure unwanted wind energy at night in the off-peak, surplus wind energy, and create a 100% green capacity product to sell the next day,” he said. “In that case, it is 100% renewable, and we will have a renewable energy credit to resell.

It’s not a bad investment. The turbines use no fossil fuels, and each facility should last 100 years.

If each 1,000 MW project produces for 100 years, it should pay for the initial $2 Billion investment many times over, while creating jobs and giving green energy developers a solid market for their power.

Douglas points out:

“Even if we were buying coal at night for our pumping, there’s still a huge carbon win here, because we’re precluding the need for a new fossil peaker plant.”

Related stories:

Baseload Wind Cheaper than Fossil Fuels

Mining Hydrothermal Vents For Electricity

Images from Riverbank , Flikr user ben, and Steve Jurvetson

Via Energy Bulletin


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