Work starts in June on a 1.4GW pumped storage power plant in the northern Chinese province of Shanxi, the latest start in China’s intense campaign to build hundreds of gigawatts worth of pumped storage generating capacity.
Set to cost $1.5bn, the plant will be built in the mountains of Daixian County, home to a stretch of China’s Great Wall.
Shanxi Daixian Zhenghuaneng Energy Development Company is building it.
In a State Council notice, the company’s deputy general manager Li Zhitao said the scheme would generate 3,000 gigawatt-hours a year and take 72 months to build.
270GW on the way
Pumped-storage has become a focus of China’s power sector in recent years. In 2022, energy specialist Power China said a generating capacity of 270GW would be built over three years (see further reading).
The biggest so far, Fengning Station in Hebei Province, was completed last year. It has a capacity of 3.6GW and cost $1.9bn.
Altogether, pumped storage capacity in China has reached 58GW.
Why pumped is preferred
Pumped storage is favoured because of its mature technology, generous capacity, comparatively low cost, and plants’ long design life.
Shanxi province alone plans to install another nine stations in the future.
The embrace of pumped storage is intended to match a similar acceleration in other renewables.
By the end of last year, China had a solar capacity of 890GW, a year-on-year increase of 45%, according to the National Energy Administration.
Wind power reached 520GW during the same period, an 18% increase.
420GW by 2035
In the longer term, China is looking at building 340 pumped storage projects. If all goes to plan, 120GW will be in place by 2030 and 420GW by 2035.
As well as the “two-lakes” model of pumped storage, in which surplus electrical power is converted into potential energy, China is looking to develop “distributed” facilities.
These are small-scale plants that use existing infrastructure such as storm-water basins or irrigation reservoirs to store and release water for generation.
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