Publications

162

Bulletin 162

Environmental Fluid Mechanics
178

Bulletin 178

Operation of Hydraulic Structures of Dams
180

Bulletin 180

Dam Surveillance - Lessons learnt from case histories
27th

27th Congress

Marseille June 2022
World Register of Dams / Registre Mondial des Barrages

World Register of Dams / Registre Mondial des Barrages

Buy an access to the online World Register of Dams for 3years.

 

The WRD is the best available data basis on dams in the world and we are constantly striving to better it.

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Position Paper

Position Paper

Position Paper - Dam Safety and Earthquakes

Events

ICOLD Event

Webinar : A FUTURE IN TAILINGS ENGINEERING : An Introduction to a Diverse Career with Immense Opportunities

Online. Microsoft Teams

27-28 March 2023

 

Link to register

ETIP Hydropower

Brussels Hydropower Day 2023 - 25 Avril 2023

Brussels, Belgium

25 April 2023

 

View the website here

ICOLD2023

ICOLD CIGB 2023 - 91st Annual Meeting

Gothenburg, Sweden 

11- 15 June 2023

 

View the website here

Africa2023

Africa 2023

Lake Victoria, Uganda

10 - 12 July 2023

 

View the website here

12thEuropeanClub

12th ICOLD European Club Symposium

Interlaken, Switzerland

5-8 September 2023

 

View the website

ICOLDTKZ2023logo

XX TECHNICAL DAM CONTROL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

Hotel Diament Arsenal Palace in Chorzów (Poland)

12 - 15 September 2023

 

View the website here

Hydro2023

HYDRO 2023

Edinburgh International Congress Centre (EICC), Scotland

16-18 October 2023

 

View the website here

Infrastructure for green energy, 30 May 2012

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Central Europe goes for pumped storage plants development

 

An European initiative signed by Germany, Austria and Switzerland calls for the development of more pumped-storage power plants.

 

Those plants are the only existing mean to store large quantities of electricity. Beside playing a crucial role for stabilizing the network frequency by easing the supply-demand balance, power storage is becoming absolutely necessary because of the rapid development of intermittent renewable energies like wind or solar.


This is recognized by the three signatory ministers: Phillipp Rosler of the Austrian Republic’s Ministry of Economy and Technology; Reinhold Mitterlehner of Germany's Ministry of Economy, Family and Youth; and Doris Leuthard of the Swiss Council for the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications. They declare pumped storage is essential if Europe wants to reach its energy and climate policy objectives. Those objectives are often familiarly called the “20-20-20 targets”.


A view of the Emosson dam in Switzerland. It will be used as the lower reservoir for the 600 MW Nant-de-Drance pumping storage plant being built there.


European countries have agreed in 2008 to lower their greenhouse gas emissions 20% by the year 2020 below 1990 levels. That would be accomplished by investments in renewable electricity generation like wind and solar power : 20% of European energy is to come from renewable resources.  The third objective is to increase overall energy efficiency by 20%.


As the initiative notes, however, "pumped storage power plants are the only industrially available storage technology present," and their development is essential to "offset the volatile supply of wind and solar systems."


The agreement not only calls for the expansion of existing pumped-storage facilities but also cross-border transmission of energy currently being produced.  But the agreement does not mention the obstacles to the use of pumped storage plants, like the rates applied to electricity transport which make the operation much less profitable (utilities operating a pumping storage station have to pay twice for electricity transport).

 

 

Tags : Events

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