Economic Feasibility of Underground Pumped Storage Hydropower Plants Providing Ancillary Services

The electricity generated by some renewable energy sources (RESs) is difficult to forecast; therefore, large-scale energy storage systems (ESSs) are required for balancing supply and demand. Unlike conventional pumped storage hydropower (PSH) systems, underground pumped storage hydropower (UPSH) plants are not limited by topography and produce low environmental impacts. In this paper, a deterministic model has been conducted for three UPSH plants in order to evaluate the economic feasibility when considering daily turbine cycle times at full load (DTCs) between 4 and 10 h. In the model, the day-ahead and the ancillary services markets have been compared to maximize the price spread between the electricity generated and consumed. Secondary regulation, deviation management and tertiary regulation services have been analyzed to maximize the income and minimize the cost for purchasing energy. The capital costs of an open-loop UPSH plant have been estimated for the case of using the existing infrastructure and for the case of excavating new tunnels as lower reservoirs. The net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR) and payback period (PB) have been obtained in all scenarios. The results obtained show that the energy generation and the annual generation cycles decrease when the DTC increases from 4 to 10 h, while the NPV and the IRR increase due to investment costs. The investment cost of a 219 MW UPSH plant using the existing infrastructure reaches 366.96 M€, while the NPV, IRR and PB reached 185 M€, 7.10% and 15 years, respectively, participating in the ancillary services markets and considering a DTC of 8 h.