WaterNSW, the state-owned water supplier to New South Wales (NSW), Australia, has selected three dams as suitable sites for pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) developments.
The company said yesterday that its Blowering, Burrendong and Hume dams have been shortlisted as sites where potential new long-duration energy storage (LDES) PHES plants could be built.
WaterNSW said in April that it was carrying out pre-feasibility studies for pumped hydro developments at 41 of its dams in the state. After the water company assesses grid capacity, access, and terrain, as well as geotechnical suitability and functional design, potential developers then carry out further investigations.
WaterNSW said that a buildout of pumped hydro on sites it has identified so far could add 5.2GW of energy storage to the NSW market by 2034.
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The company said this can support the NSW government’s renewable energy objectives, although all projects would be privately funded and not by WaterNSW or the government. NSW is pursuing 16GW of new renewable generation and 42GWh of LDES by 2034 under its NSW Electricity Roadmap policy strategy.
The exploration forms part of the company’s Renewable Energy and Storage Program, which gives access to land and reservoirs for project feasibility studies.
The initiative has seen WaterNSW already partner with developers of proposed projects, including AGL, ZEN Energy and ACEN Australia.
ACEN Australia’s Phoenix Pumped Hydro Project would be sited at one of the newly shortlisted sites, Burrendong, and feature 800MW output at 12-hour duration (9,600MWh). The project secured a Long-Term Energy Service Agreement (LTESA) through a NSW roadmap tender for long-duration storage in February.
AGL’s proposals cover two plants at Glenbawn and Glennies Creek dams, totalling 1,393MW of output at 10-hour duration (14,000MWh), and ZEN Energy’s Western Sydney Pumped Hydro project would convert a disused coal processing facility at Lake Burragorang, 24km from WaterNSW’s Warragamba dam.
WaterNSW head of major projects Mark Roberts said the latest announcement “is an important milestone in identifying new sites at WaterNSW dams that could host more privately developed long-duration pumped hydro projects to support the state’s renewable energy transition,” but noted that the three newly identified sites are not yet confirmed for development, and further study is pending.
“A small number of additional sites may be also added, once further pre-feasibility studies have been completed later this year,” Roberts added.
