In reply to Jed Rothwell's message of Fri, 8 Feb 2013 10:47:10 -0500: Hi, [snip] >Here is a "ring island" proposal for pumped hydro in the North Sea. This is >basically a large hole in the ocean: > >http://www.hydroworld.com/articles/2013/january/belgium-considers-ring-island-energy-storage-scheme.html > >- Jed
This would seem to go very well with North Sea wind. A large part of the North sea is quite shallow, so wind farms could be placed far from shore and have "built in" storage at the base of the wind farm. In fact if walls were constructed first, then soil could be dredged up from the seabed in the center to fill the space between the walls, constructing an artificial island upon which the turbines could be mounted. The empty space in the middle would be extra deep because of the sand/soil that had been removed, thus increasing the capacity of the pumped storage. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
