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The so-called “water battery” built in Switzerland over the past 14 years is finally operational.
It sits around 600 meters underground and took fourteen years to build – but the so-called “The batteries at Eau », at the heart of Swiss Alps, is finally ready to act. Its operation is as simple as it is interesting: imagine two huge reservoirs of water on the sides of the mountain, placed prominently at different altitudes. When it is necessary to generate electricity, the upper stage “opens” and the water is directed to the lower stage, passing through turbines which, when they come into operation, generate electricity. electricity – the same principle that revives traditional hydroelectric power stations –; If there is a surplus of electric power, hydraulic pumps are activated, causing the water to rise to the upper reservoir.
It’s actually a simple trick, but it’s worth a total output of 900 MW, enough to power 900,000 homes. As already mentioned, the “battery” is located in the canton of Valais, Switzerland, and for its construction eighteen kilometers of tunnels were dug in the rocky entrails of the Alps: the installation also consists of a huge room 200 meters long by 32 wide, which actually houses the aforementioned pumps needed to “charge the battery”. The flexibility inherent in operation also makes it possible to produce a fraction of the needs of the European and Swiss electricity grid at times of greatest demand and to store excess electricity when demand drops.
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