Worldwide market for pumped-storage power plants to grow rapidly

Dublin - In the next ten years to come, the worldwide market for pumped-storage power plants will grow stronger than ever before. More than 100 new plants with an installed capacity of about 74 Gigawatts will be developed by 2020 - which is around 50 per cent of the plants existing today and adds up to an investment volume of about 56 billion euros. When also considering the upcoming maintenance measures, the investment volume will even increase to over 73 billion euros, according to a report by Dublin-based Research and Markets.

The main reasons for the emerging boom are the globally increasing share of renewable energies of the total electricity production as well as the construction of new coal and nuclear power plants especially in Asian countries. New pumped-storage power plants will be constructed for the intermediate storage of electricity from these fossil power plants and for the fluctuating generation particularly of wind and solar power.

Asia is the largest growth market. Above all, the market will be characterised by what is happening in China - the country alone will account for about a third of the global market volume. Further strong markets can be found in Europe and the USA where the development of renewable energies will be the main market factor. Due to the comparatively old age of the American and, in some cases, European plants, maintenance measures will play an ever stronger role there.

Source: IWR Online, 24 Sep 2013