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Germany is having a project to turn a coal mine into a huge battery to store the energy from renewable sources.
The Prosper-Haniel coal mine, which has been supplying coal to the German industry since 1974, will soon turn into a hydroelectric reserve of 200 megawatts.
The coal mine, which is about 610m deep, will begin to serve as a huge battery that can provide electricity for 400,000 homes when the conversion process is completed.
The mine will be completely shut down in 2018. This is a huge back-up for a country that generates high amounts of energy from renewable sources like Germany.
This giant battery stores energy by “pumping water” between two chambers, as you can see from the above picture.
The upper and lower chambers are connected to each other via turbine pipes. During periods of high energy demand, electricity is generated by transporting water from the upper reservoir to the lower reservoir via turbine pipes. When the demand is reduced, the water is replenished in the upper chamber again with the help of turbine pumps by using low amount of energy in the network.
Such plants can work with a high efficiency of up to 80 percent by balancing the energy in a larger power system.
These energy storage facilities not only provide a place to store the energy from renewable energy facilities, but also provide new jobs. In the coming year, due to the closure of this coal mine, new jobs will be created for many people to leave their jobs, and they will be re-earned to the work environment.
One of the questions that everyone’s minds are busy these days is “What will happen to people who work in traditional jobs in the future?” … The question is getting a different dimension with such examples. During the construction of this type of plant, it is possible to make a good training program for those who want coal mine workers to adapt to their new jobs easily. Thus, two-sided gains are achieved.
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