The Anonymous Widower

Hydro-Storage Options To Be Studied For Grängesberg

The title of this post, is the same as that of this news item from Anglesey Mining.

These are the highlights of the news item.

  • Anglesey Mining plc, together with its 49.75% owned subsidiary Grängesberg Iron AB (“GIAB”) have entered into an MoU with Mine Storage to investigate the potential for the Grängesberg Mine to be converted into a Pumped Hydro-Storage project at the end of the mine’s producing life.
  • Pumped-Hydro Storage is a green-energy storage solution that utilises water and gravity to store electrical energy. An underground mine can provide a closed-loop solution using proven, pumped hydro-power technology. Essentially, the system involves water being gravity fed through pipes down a shaft into the turbines, which produce electricity for supply to the grid and also pump the water back to surface. The mine storage system has a high round-trip efficiency of 75-85% and proven durability.
  • The MoU with Mine Storage could lead to numerous future benefits.

I like this project.

Too often, when mines, quarries or other large operations come to the end of their economic lives, they are just abandoned in the hope that something worthwhile will happen.

But here we have a company planning the end of an iron ore mine in a way that will turn it into a source of future revenue.

I have a few thoughts.

Mine Storage

Mine Storage are a Swedish company with an informative web site.

The web site answered most of my questions.

Mines Are Moving From a Liability To A Resource

Consider.

  • Gravitricity are using mines to store energy using cables and weights.
  • Charlotte Adams and her team at Durham University are developing the use of the heat in abandoned coal mines.
  • The Global Centre of Rail Excellence is being developed in a disused opencast mine in Wales.
  • RheEnergise are developing their first High Density Hydro system in the Hemerdon Tungsten Mine in Devon.

And now we have this co-operation between Anglesey Mining and Mine Storage working together on pumped storage hydroelectricity.

Where is Grängesberg

This Google Map shows the location of Grängesberg.

It is convenient for storing energy for Stockholm.

 

March 17, 2023 Posted by | Energy, Energy Storage, Uncategorized | , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment