Daniele Novara
Founded in 1935, the International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research (IAHR) is a well known worldwide association combining together researchers and practitioners from various fields related to water management and hydraulics.
Its 2022 World Congress saw the participation of over 1,200 delegates that came together for a week in Granada, Spain, to present their latest research and network with other professionals.
Among them, Daniele Novara presented a new research paper describing how submersible Pumps As Turbines (PATs) can be utilized as energy storage devices to absorb the excess of electricity generated by renewables and balance the electric grid. In short, at times when excess electricity is available a submersible PAT is capable of operating immersed in a lower water body (reservoir or river) and pump water into an upper reservoir. Then, when the solar or wind electricity stops being generated the same device can operate as turbine and produce power by letting the same volume of water to flow back into the lower reservoir.
The concept was backed by a laboratory test campaign and by a case study of its application to an Irish countryside estate. The results showed that, when coupled to a significant installed photovoltaic generation capacity, a submersible PAT working as an energy storage device can reduce the overall grid energy import needs of the estate by over -55%.
The IAHR congress was an excellent opportunity to present such research to a varied and multicultural audience of water engineers and environmental experts. In fact, several other presentations were centered on various hydropower technologies: from maintenance issues of large dams to small-scale energy recovery from water and irrigation networks by means of different devices (PATs, water wheels, hydrokinetic turbines).
All in all, the feedback received and the contacts established will allow for a stronger and more informed continuation of the research work being carried out.