Tehri Hydro Development Corporation Ltd.
In view of decline in availability of conventional hydropower project sites, an urgent need to exploit the pumped storage potential to meet the ever-increasing demand of peak power for the present and also in future has arisen. Pumped storage schemes play an important role in providing peaking power and maintaining system stability in the power system. The concept behind the development of pumped storage plants is the conversion of relatively low cost off peak energy generated in thermal plants into high value peak power. The off peak energy available in the grid is utilized to pump water from lower reservoir to an upper reservoir. The water from the upper reservoir is utilized for generation to meet the demand during peak hours. In addition, pumped storage schemes improve over all economy of power system operation, increase capacity utilization of thermal stations and reduce operational problems of thermal power stations during off peak period. The fact that energy output from the pumped storage scheme is always less than energy input should not obscure the fact that this loss to the system is small when compared with substantial savings in fuel, which is made when these stations are operated in an integrated manner.
The present paper deals with the important features of the Tehri Pumped Storage Plant, which is under implementation.
