Section 02 of 05
Hydro
A century of Alpine storage, and what pumping is for. The oldest part of the Italian system and still the fastest. Reservoirs, run-of-river and pumped storage do three different jobs, and only one of them is bulk energy.
4 pieces in this section
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A Century of Alpine Storage
Italy's hydro predates almost everything else on the system. The reservoirs, the penstocks and the reason mountain geography made early electrification possible at all.
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Pumped Storage Is the Grid's Only Real Battery
Water pumped uphill when power is cheap and released when it is dear. The round-trip efficiency, the scale, and why this is the largest storage Italy actually has.
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Run-of-River, and Why It Is Not Storage
The distinction that decides what a plant can do for the grid: generating when the river allows versus generating when the system asks.
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What a Dry Year Does
Hydro output tracks rainfall, and a dry year removes a large block of generation. How the rest of the system covers it.
