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Thank you. This is already four years old. Their system seems to have a constructed tank, rather than relying on a natural basin. That is fine when storage need is limited; and tankage is relatively cheap, as construction goes.

Where an elevated natural basin can be found, that can radically increase the storage capacity from hours to, potentially, weeks, and for even less expense: just the penstock needs to be built. Elevated basins are much more common than the elevated river valleys needed for pure hydro generation. A hybrid approach is to wall up one end of an elevated box canyon: a dam, technically, but inflow is pumped from below rather than drainage from above. There is some construction cost, but radically less per unit volume of storage than a complete tank. Dams with penstocks are extremely mature tech.




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