China Southern Grid Pledges $9 Billion in Pumped Hydro Spending
(Bloomberg) -- China’s second-largest grid operator plans to invest 65 billion yuan ($9.4 billion) in pumped hydro stations through 2030, as the country seeks more storage capacity to balance weather-dependent renewable power.
China Southern Power Grid Co.’s listed storage unit aims to add eight facilities in that time, to serve electricity networks spanning five provinces including the country’s richest manufacturing base of Guangdong, the company said in a statement earlier this week.
Pumped hydro is a long-standing means of storing energy at a scale, using water at different elevations to generate electricity. The technology has been constrained by hefty capital requirements, but development has picked up in recent years as curtailments of renewable power have grown.
The investment is one element of China Southern’s massive undertaking to lift its annual spending to a record 180 billion yuan this year. More money is needed to modernize the grid and deal with the huge amounts of power generated by clean energy.
Each facility will have 1.2 gigawatts of capacity, driving additional investments among suppliers of around 16 billion yuan per station, the company said.
The government is aiming for 120 gigawatts of pumped hydro this decade, after surpassing 66 gigawatts last year. BloombergNEF has said it expects installations to exceed that target.
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