Successful Performance of the Pilot Test Plant of a Seawater Pumped Storage Power Generation and Technical Investigation of Underground Pumped Storage Power Generation

摘要

A Seawater Pumped Storage (SWPS) Power Generation features an availability of the sea as a reservoir and a possibility of an arrangement in the neighborhoods of populated area with much electric demand and/or electric resources of nuclear plants or thermal power plant. These features are beneficial to enhance the economical efficiency of construction cost and site selections of plants. However, the use of seawater evokes engineering concerns, relating to an adhesion of marine organisms, a corrosion of materials, and a leakage and/or dispersion of seawater from an upper pond. Since March 1999, a new design concept has been verified so as to demonstrate the reliability and the applicability to commercial SWPSs through the operation of the pilot test plant with 30MW in capacity. This paper gives the successful performance of the pilot test plant which provides that the adopted countermeasures against engineering concerns as well as the design concept are practical and reliable in terms of the realization of the commercial SWPS. Underground Pumped Storage (UPS) power generation is one of the Pumped Storage power generation and it gives rise to less constraint in the topographic condition and smaller load on the environment compared with the conventional pumped hydro storage power generation. In the latter half of this paper, the UPS technical investigation carried out from f.y.1997 to f.y. 2002 is introduced especially focusing on ultra high head(800mclass) power generation equipment.