The Żarnowiec Pumped Storage Power Station is a

pumped-storage Pumped-storage hydroelectricity (PSH), or pumped hydroelectric energy storage (PHES), is a type of hydroelectric energy storage used by electric power systems for load balancing. A PSH system stores energy in the form of gravitational potent ...

power station located about south of

Żarnowiec Żarnowiec is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Krokowa, within Puck County, Pomeranian Voivodeship, in northern Poland. It lies close to Żarnowieckie Lake, approximately west of Krokowa, north-west of Puck, and north-west ...

, in

Puck County __NOTOC__ Puck County (, ) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Pomeranian Voivodeship, northern Poland, on the Baltic coast. The ''powiat'' of this name existed in the history of Poland, since the times of th ...

, northern

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

. It was constructed between 1973 and 1983 and underwent a modernisation between 2007 and 2011, with the upper reservoir reconstructed in 2006. With a capacity of 680 MW, it is the largest

hydroelectric Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is Electricity generation, electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies 15% of the world's electricity, almost 4,210 TWh in 2023, which is more than all other Renewable energ ...

power station in Poland. It uses four 170 MW Francis pump-turbines to send water from its lower reservoir, Lake Żarnowiec, up to an upper reservoir for storage. During periods of high power demand, the water is released back down to the turbines to produce power. Water is pumped back up during periods of low power demand, such as night time. The power station was originally intended to be a

load balancer In computing, load balancing is the process of distributing a set of tasks over a set of resources ''Resource'' refers to all the materials available in our environment which are Technology, technologically accessible, Economics, economically ...

for

Żarnowiec Nuclear Power Plant The Żarnowiec Nuclear Power Plant () was to be the first nuclear power plant in Poland.''A Country Study: Poland'', Library of Congress, Call Number DK4040 .P57 199/ref> The construction was cancelled due to changes in the economic and polit ...

which was supposed to be constructed on the opposite side of Lake Żarnowiec. A 900 MWh / 263 MW grid battery is scheduled for 2029.

References

Pumped-storage hydroelectric power stations in Poland Energy infrastructure completed in 1983 Puck County 1983 establishments in Poland {{Poland-struct-stub

See also

References