Sustainability of Pumped Hydropower for Short-Term Storage of Wind Farm Electricity

The ever-accelerating incorporation of renewable energy sources into the generation mix, both in Spain and worldwide, makes it necessary to have systems that can control their unpredictability. One way to improve the manageability of these generation sources is to hybridize them with storage systems. This article analyzes the environmental impact of using one of these storage systems, such as pumped storage hydropower, together with renewable energy from a wind farm. Spain is a country with great potential to develop pumped hydropower facilities, as well as wind power generation, so the possibility of hybridizing these systems is of interest for the future progress of the national electricity system. To study the environmental impact of this system, the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology is used. The results obtained show an environmental impact in the climate change category of 9.86E−02 kg CO2 eq for the generation of 1 kWh of electricity from water pumped with the electric power of a wind farm. If this impact is compared with the impact of generating 1 kWh of electricity with natural gas or with a coal-fired power plant, the reductions are 78.85% and 91.31% respectively.