Hundreds of hills across the UK could be transformed into renewable energy “batteries” through an innovative underground hydropower system.
A team of engineers has developed a system that will convert one of the oldest forms of energy storage, hydroelectric, to store and release electricity from gentle slopes rather than requiring steep dam and mountain walls.
This could lead to hundreds of potential hydroelectric sites across the UK, which would be faster and cheaper to build than traditional hydroelectric dams and also lead to fewer negative environmental impacts.
hydro-electric graph
The hillside projects would mimic traditional UK hydro-electric plants by using extra electricity to pump water up the hill, then diverting the water down the hill through a spinning wheel. devices to generate electricity when needed.
However, the “high-intensity” hydroelectric projects use mineral-filled liquids, which have more than two and a half times the density of water, to generate the same amount of electricity from slopes that are less than half as high.
The company behind the plans, RheEnergise, said the project would pump the thick water up a 200-meter-high hill, at times when electricity would not be required. It would be housed in an underground storage tank larger than an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
Then when additional electricity was needed, the liquid was allowed to flow back down the mountain, over generating turbines, to return the electricity used by its pumps earlier in the day back to the grid.