Late last year, Lake Cethana was selected by Hydro Tasmania as the first potential site for pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) to take through to final design and approvals. Lake Cethana is part of the Mersey-Forth run-of-river catchment system, where water flows from rivers, cascading through a series of power stations, using the same water to generate energy multiple times.
Environmental, social, geological and a range of other studies are currently underway at Lake Cethana. Early feasibility work showed that the initial design option of 600MW and 11 hours can be scaled up to 750MW (to take full advantage of the increased sizing of the Marinus Link interconnector) and up to 20 hours’ deep storage duration (to meet expected future market needs).
The project will include:
– A new off-river upper storage on the western side of the Lake
– 3.5kms of new underground tunnels linking to the existing Lake Cethana as the lower storage
– An underground pumped hydro power station containing 4 reversible pump turbine units
– A new transmission line connection from the power station switchyard to TasNetworks’ proposed new Staverton substation.
You can learn more about the project and get in contact with the Battery of the Nation team here
