Solar powered pumped Hydroelectric energy storage/desalination plant?
New to this and just looking for information.
Clean water is becoming scarce and we are looking to offset carbon emissions through these technologies. Has this TITLE already been considered or created?
Here in Western Australia we have an abundance of sunlight and have adopted rooftop solar as an easy way to offset energy costs while helping the environment. The daily energy return to the grid is beginning to outweigh the local energy storage capacity and being a fairly arid part of Australia, are likely to encounter water shortage.
The thought of a Solar powered pumped Hydroelectric energy storage/desalination plant could help overcome each of these problems.
I have seen solar desalination and solar pumped hydroelectric storage. Has this TITLE been considered/created?
Posted Aug 28, 2019, 1:42 AM UTC
For hydroelectric storage you need height, to deal with the high 'energy return' (from rooftop) you can use desalination as (variable) 'on demand' load (expensive-ish 'drinking' quality).
Unfortunately WA is a very flat part of the world. There have been places around the state proposed as possible sites for hydroelectric power sites(ARENA) but I imagine that would be a costly exercise. Plus it sounds like the desalination integration might stay as a pipe dream... bad pun intended