INESC TEC has recently signed a contract with EDA - Electricidade do Açores (electricity provider in the Azores islands) for the provision of specialised technical consultancy services. As part of this contract, INESC TEC will be conducting different studies to find solutions for building  pure reversible hydroelectric power plants on the islands of São Miguel and Terceira.

These power plants will be designed to store the electricity surplus generated from renewable sources during the night, and then inject that energy into the grid during periods of higher consumption.

This study involves two problems: firstly, it will be necessary to calculate the amount of energy to store and to define the power and the number of pumps and turbines to be installed, which will then make it possible to scale the upper and lower reservoirs and define the structure of the power plants. Secondly, the ability of pumps and hydric generators to participate in frequency regulation will be studied, as well as system’s stability against disturbances. This will be useful to fine tune the solutions initially, and to determine the equipment to be installed.

This is a highly complex contract that is associated with investments of tens of millions of euros on the islands.

In this contract, INESC TEC is represented by its Centre for Power and Energy Systems (CPES), and the team is composed of André Madureira, Bernardo Silva, Carlos Moreira, and João Peças Lopes (Member of the Board of INESC TEC).

The INESC TEC researchers mentioned in this news piece are associated with INESC TEC and UP-FEUP.

INESC TEC, February 2016