[maxfan8]

Yep, it’s called pumped hydro: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricit...

I think it’s very promising/exciting as a method of smoothing out the demand curves of the electric grid. Plus, it’s fairly straightforward to modify existing dams/hydro infrastructure to have this capacity.

Since some dams are already used as water reservoirs for drinking/agriculture, this could be quite viable if the desalination can be done cheaply and efficiently at scale (not sure if this is even possible on the scales required for this idea to make sense, though).

[Narkov]

Pumped hydro has been extremely effective in Australia since the mid 1960's. There's currently a project to extend the capacity of the Snowy Hydro scheme to soak up this extra transient renewable capacity.

https://www.snowyhydro.com.au/generation/the-snowy-scheme/

[maxfan8]

That's cool -- I didn't know that! Imo, the more effective and cheaply we can store energy and smooth out supply/demand curves, the more attractive solar and wind becomes.

Perhaps one way of encouraging a "greener" grid is to first encourage the development of cheap energy storage solutions, and then letting the market figure out the best way to utilize such storage (rather than the other way around). Might lead to more efficient/creative green energy solutions.