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Review

Pumped Hydro Energy Storage Plants in China: Increasing Demand and Multidimensional Impacts Identification

by
Mingyue Pang
1,
Yan Du
1,
Wenjie Pei
1,
Pengpeng Zhang
2,
Juhua Yang
3 and
Lixiao Zhang
4,*
1
Key Laboratory of Three Gorges Reservoir Region’s Eco-Environment, Ministry of Education, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400045, China
2
School of Geographical Sciences, Hebei Normal University, Shijiazhuang 050024, China
3
China Huadian Corporation, Electric Power Construction Technical & Economical Consulting Center, Beijing 100031, China
4
State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Energies 2025, 18(7), 1801; https://doi.org/10.3390/en18071801
Submission received: 15 February 2025 / Revised: 24 March 2025 / Accepted: 26 March 2025 / Published: 3 April 2025
(This article belongs to the Section B: Energy and Environment)
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Abstract

:
In light of the soaring growth of pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) plants in China in recent years, there is an urgent need for a comprehensive understanding of their developmental trajectory and the identification of their multidimensional impacts. This paper reviews the development of PHES in China and highlights its various impacts. Despite the relatively late start of PHES development in China, the country has recently ranked first worldwide with an aggregated installed capacity of 50.94 GW in operation in 2023. These plants are primarily distributed in North China, East China, and South China, contributing to the safe and stable operation of regional power grids. Furthermore, over 300 plants are under construction or in the planning stage across the whole country, aiming to support large-scale renewable energy development and facilitate a sustainable energy transition. However, it is important to recognize that such extensive PHES development requires significant land resources, which can lead to disturbances in local ecosystems and affect nearby residents. Additionally, environmental emissions may arise from a life-cycle perspective. Finally, several countermeasures are proposed to enhance sustainable PHES development in China. They include strengthening the rational planning of new plants to optimize their spatial distribution, refining the engineering design of new plants, and exploring avenues for sharing the benefits of PHES development with a broad spectrum of local residents.

1. Introduction

Electrical energy storage refers to the process of converting electricity from the power grid into a stable form and reconverting it back into electrical energy as needed [1]. Since the 19th century, people have embarked on an exploratory journey to transform electrical energy into forms such as chemical and thermal energy for storage to ensure the safe and stable operation of the power grids [2,3]. Up to now, various energy storage technologies have been developed and extensively applied worldwide, which can be classified as mechanical energy storage (e.g., pumped hydro energy storage (PHES), compressed air energy storage (CAES), and flywheel energy storage), electrochemical energy storage (e.g., lithium-ion battery energy storage (LIB), redox flow battery, and lead-acid battery), and electromagnetic energy storage (e.g., superconducting magnetic energy storage and super-capacitor energy storage) [4,5,6]. Meanwhile, with the rapid development of renewable energy in the last two decades, e.g., solar and wind power, energy storage systems have been entrusted with a new mission, which is to combine renewable energy sources and different energy storage systems due to their capability to stabilize the intermittent output of renewable energy sources and reduce the adverse impacts of the parallel operation of these renewable energy sources on the power grid [7,8,9].
Among different energy storage technologies, PHES is one of the most mature, with the advantages of a fast response time, low cost, long lifespan, and large storage capacity [10,11,12]. As a special hydropower technology, the operating principle of PHES is quite straightforward. Specifically, water is pumped for energy storage during periods of low electricity demand and then released to drive the turbine for power generation when the demand is high. The world’s first PHES plant, with an installed capacity of 515 kW, was constructed in Switzerland in 1882. After over 140 years of development, it still dominates the global energy storage market. As of 2023, the global installed capacity of PHES plants amounted to 179 GW, accounting for 67.0% of the total energy storage capacity [13,14].
As shown in Figure 1, the PHES plants in operation are mainly located in East Asia and the Pacific, Europe, as well as the Americas, representing 93.26% of the total PHES installed capacity [14]. But it can be easily found that there has been little growth in PHES construction in Europe and the Americas in recent years. This is mainly due to the fact that these countries are facing geographical constraints, such as the scarcity of suitable terrain and water sources for constructing new PHES plants [9,15,16]. More importantly, environmental concerns may also make the approval and construction of new projects more stringent [17]. Therefore, some European and American countries have been gradually shifting their focus to new energy storage technologies in recent years, such as electrochemical energy storage and CAES. In contrast, the East Asia and Pacific region, especially China, is witnessing a booming development of PHES. The installed capacity in this region reached 90.53 GW in 2023, accounting for more than 50% of the global installed capacity [14]. Additionally, in the same year, China contributed 83% of the newly installed capacity in this region [14].
Undoubtedly, the booming development of PHES in China is closely related to the ongoing national energy transition, i.e., developing more renewable energy to substitute fossil fuels to cope with climate change and energy security. By the end of 2023, the installed capacity of various renewable energy sources reached 1516 GW, accounting for 51.9% of the total installed power generation capacity in China [24]. The consistent increase of the penetration rate of renewable energy in China’s power grid requires more stable and reliable energy storage systems, urging the construction of PHES plants into a strategic opportunity period. However, it should be noted that the construction and operation of PHES plants inevitably incur various ecological, environmental, and social impacts, which might be more or less similar to the conventional hydropower development [25,26]. Thus, there is an urgent need to have a clear understanding of PHES development in China and to identify the multidimensional impacts induced by PHES plants to explore more effective strategies for their green and sustainable development.
Accordingly, the objectives of this study are addressed as follows: (1) to analyze the developmental trajectory and future plans of the PHES industry in China; (2) to identify the multidimensional impacts induced by the construction and operation of PHES plants, including environmental and ecological impacts, as well as the impacts on local residents; and (3) to explore possible strategies for the PHES industry to enhance its sustainable development in China.

2. The PHES Development in China

2.1. Development Trajectory of the PHES in China

2.1.1. Early Exploration of PHES

In 1968, more than half a century after the world’s first PHES plant was built in Switzerland, China built its first PHES plant, the Gangnan hydropower plant, in Hebei Province. It only installed one pump storage unit with a capacity of 11 MW, which was imported from Japan [27]. This plant was used for peak shaving of the local power grid. Later, two 11 MW domestically produced units were installed in the Miyun hydropower plant in Beijing in 1973 and 1975, respectively. These two plants marked the beginning of PHES development in China [28]. After the reform and opening up, some PHES plants, such as the Panjiakou plant in Hebei Province and the Tianhuangping plant in Zhejiang Province, were put into operation with the development of the domestic power industry. However, the overall development of the PHES industry during this period was relatively slow (Figure 2). This is mainly due to the lack of domestic pump storage unit manufacturing technology. In fact, the Miyun plant suffered from a breakdown in 1979 due to the design flaws of pump storage units, and it resumed operation in 1986. Worse still, the imported units were very expensive. To be specific, the investment in mechanical and electrical equipment accounted for 67.5% of the total investment in the Tianhuangping PHES plant due to the expensive pump storage units imported from other countries; whereas this percentage fell in the range of 21.3% to 37.6% for foreign PHES plants at the same time [29].

2.1.2. The Principal Option for Load Regulation of Power Systems

As the new century commenced, the electricity demand surged dramatically with the accelerated economic growth. The coal-dominated power systems suffered from the increasingly prominent peak-to-valley difference, which required more PHES plants to maintain the safe and stable operation of power systems. To reduce the dependency on imported pump storage units and lower construction costs, the Chinese government invested more in the research and development of PHES technologies. The breakthroughs in the key manufacturing technologies of pump storage units laid a solid foundation for the independent construction and long-term development of PHES plants [34,35]. With several new PHES plants put into operation, China’s cumulative installed capacity reached 28.69 GW in 2017, surpassing Japan to become the country with the largest PHES installed capacity globally [18]. The rapid development of PHES plants made them the major backbone for load regulation of power systems in China. Figure 3a presents the distribution of the 48 PHES plants currently in operation across the whole country. Detailed information about these plants (e.g., the location, installed capacity, and connected river) is provided in Table S1 in the Supplementary Materials. Among them, 32 plants were put into operation before 2020, mainly distributed in North China, East China, and South China.
Nonetheless, it should be noted that the ideal percentage of PHES installed capacity in the power grids is about 8–14% [36]; however, in 2020, the share was only 1.43% [37]. It seems that the development of PHES plants cannot adequately meet the requirements of the load regulation of power grids in China. Besides, China’s PHES installed capacity in 2020 was 31.49 GW, which actually did not accomplish the target of 40 GW proposed in the 13th Five-Year Plan [38]. This is mainly due to the high initial investment of PHES plants and the unfavorable electricity price policy [39]. In China, PHES plants have been mostly managed and operated by power grid enterprises, and the non-market operation mode has been adopted. However, due to the influence of the reform policy of transmission and distribution pricing, PHES plants with two-part electricity pricing and capacity electricity pricing cannot transmit the costs to electricity users through transmission and distribution pricing, which has made it difficult to recover the plants’ costs [40].

2.1.3. A Critical Component for Sustainable Energy Transition

Since 2020, the Chinese government has vigorously pursued various renewable energy development modes for the construction of a “clean and low-carbon, safe and efficient” energy system in order to fulfill the peak of carbon dioxide emissions in 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060 [41]. In such a context, the construction of more PHES plants has become indispensable to stabilize the intermittent output of renewable energy sources as well as maintain the safe and stable operation of power grids. In other words, PHES plants have become an important support for large-scale renewable energy development in China, promoting the country’s sustainable energy transition. Between 2021 and 2023, there were a total of 19.45 GW of pumped storage units put into operation. By 2023, the cumulative installed capacity of China’s PHES plants reached 50.94 GW, accounting for 28.44% of the global installed capacity of PHES [14].
Besides, there are 125 PHES plants under construction, with a total installed capacity of 169 GW. As shown in Figure 3b, East China and South China remain the key regions for PHES construction due to their developed economies and high electricity demand. Among different province-level regions, Zhejiang is in an absolute leading position, with 16 plants under construction and a total installed capacity of 20,495 MW. These projects not only serve the local grid in Zhejiang but also support the whole Yangtze River Delta, playing an important role in enhancing the stability and flexibility of the regional power supply. Besides, the installed capacities under construction in Hebei, Henan, Hubei, and Hunan in North China and Central China also exceed 10,000 MW. More importantly, the construction of PHES plants is expanding to the western regions of the country, especially the northwest region, such as Gansu. There are abundant wind and solar resources in these areas, and the government has planned the construction of several large-scale renewable energy development bases composed of wind power and solar power here, urging more PHES plant construction to promote their stable operation and more electricity output.
It should also be noted that although the government provided new policy guidelines for PHES electricity prices [42], when a PHES plant serves multiple customers, the capacity cost allocation mechanism lacks specific details, making it difficult to implement in practice. Moreover, although the policy encourages PHES plants to participate in the ancillary service market or compensation mechanisms, the quantification of their ancillary service functions within the ancillary service market is fraught with difficulties, hindering the reasonable revenue and development of the PHES industry in the market [40].

2.2. Increasing Demand for PHES Construction in the Future

In recent years, China has achieved significant progress in PHES technologies. For instance, China’s first self-developed digital intelligent speed control system for large-scale PHES units was put into operation in the Guangzhou PHES plant in 2023, which can effectively improve the control and protection capabilities. In 2024, China successfully developed the 300 MW variable-speed PHES unit, promoting the upgrading and application expansion of the PHES systems [43]. The technological progress makes PHES systems provide better service for load regulation and renewable energy development. It is estimated that the total installed capacity of wind power and PV power will exceed 1200 GW by 2030 [30]. In the foreseeable future, a much larger scale of PHES construction will be put into practice.
According to the plans, the cumulative installed capacity of PHES plants in operation in China will reach 62 GW by 2025, 120 GW by 2030, and more than 400 GW by 2035 [30,44]. More than 200 proposed PHES projects will begin construction by 2035. A spatial location database of these proposed plants was established according to the name list of key implementation PHES projects proposed by the government, as shown in Figure 4. It can be easily found that these proposed plants in China are mainly distributed in the southwest and northwest regions to better support the construction of new energy bases in these areas [45]. Besides, the substantial amount of produced renewable energy electricity needs to be transmitted to the eastern regions through the long-distance ultra-high voltage transmission channel, and the PHES plants are needed during the electricity supply to regulate and buffer the transmitted electricity, as well as to improve the efficiency and reliability of power transmission lines.
Actually, the total amount of PHES site resources incorporated into the plan in China is about 823 GW [44]. In addition to the above-mentioned proposed PHES projects that will begin construction by 2035, there may be another series of key implementation PHES projects and reserve PHES projects put into construction and operation after 2035 if more energy storage systems are required at that time [30]. The construction and operation of these PHES plants can help to meet the diverse needs of future power systems and the sustainable energy transition in China.

3. Multidimensional Impacts of PHES Development

As mentioned above, the construction and operation of the PHES plants inevitably incur various ecological, environmental, and social impacts. This section aims to identify these impacts based on the extensive field investigation of the PHES plants, which can help explore possible pathways for green and low-impact PHES development in China.

3.1. Land Requirement and Related Ecological Concerns

Currently, the reservoirs of PHES plants in China are mainly newly constructed, which involves large-scale excavation and land inundation. Besides, a large amount of land is required for the laying of diversion pipelines and the construction of facilities such as powerhouses. Thus, the PHES development inevitably transforms numerous natural ecosystems into different construction land, damaging surface vegetation and animal habitats. This would lead to a decline in the provision of ecosystem services and increase possible ecological risks [46,47]. Here, the land use intensity of PHES plants in China is evaluated to indicate their potential impacts on ecosystems. By collecting data from public information such as environmental impact statements, the land occupation of 97 PHES plants was identified, including 10 plants recently put into operation and 87 plants under construction. These plants were built in 26 provinces, covering various ecosystems such as cropland, grassland, forests, and desert. The land occupation of PHES plants includes three parts, namely, the reservoir inundation impact area, the permanent land occupation (mainly used for upper and lower reservoir hubs and road occupation as well as the powerhouses), and the temporary land occupation (mainly used for transit yards, topsoil stockpiles, various material production areas, and temporary roads). Considering that the single-unit capacity of PHES plants in China is currently dominated by 300 MW, this study divides the samples into three categories according to the single-unit capacity: less than 300 MW, 300 MW, and larger than 300 MW. Based on the sample data, the land use intensities of the reservoir inundation impact area, temporary land occupation, permanent land occupation, and total construction land occupation were analyzed and calculated. The results are shown in Figure 5.
The average land use intensities of the reservoir inundation impact area, temporary land occupation, permanent land occupation, and total land occupation of the 97 studied PHES plants were calculated to be 588.41 m2/MW, 663.04 m2/MW, 1719.51 m2/MW, and 2382.56 m2/MW, respectively. It can be seen that the average land use intensities of the four types all decreased with the increase in the single-unit capacity, and the land use intensity of plants with single-unit capacity larger than 300 MW is much lower than the average level. This suggests that with the advancement of technology, the deployment of large-capacity units in the future will have a positive significance for the effective utilization of land resources. Besides, permanent land occupation was the main land occupation type during the PHES development. For the four land occupation types, the difference between the neutrality line and the average line is relatively small, indicating that the construction standards of PHES plants in China are quite mature, and different plants can generally adopt similar land use indicators in the construction process. Thus, the total land occupation of PHES plants in China in 2023 can be roughly estimated to be 123.87 km2 based on the total land intensity of the most commonly used single-unit capacity of 300 MW (2431.72 m2/MW). Combined with China’s medium and long-term plans for PHES, it can be easily predicted that the land requirement for PHES development will reach 150.77 km2 by 2025 and 291.81 km2 by 2030, respectively, almost a 21.71% and 135.57% increase compared with 2023. Actually, most PHES plants are located in mountainous areas in order to satisfy the sufficient altitude difference [48]. Thus, the main land occupation is the valuable forest ecosystems that can provide numerous services to humankind.
In addition to the inevitable land occupation, the PHES development may pose threats to fishery resources and the stability of the water supply system [17]. As shown in Figure 3, most PHES plants in operation and under construction are located on tributaries, where the water resources are not so abundant. The frequent pumping and releasing of water from the PHES reservoirs during daily operation may lead to changes in water quality and affect the aquatic ecosystems. Besides, Lu et al. [49] suggested that PHES may also have negative impacts on the surrounding water environment and bird habitats.

3.2. Life-Cycle Environmental Impacts

Similar to conventional hydropower plants, the PHES plants require a substantial initial investment in construction materials, electric generation equipment, and maintenance costs, which are directly and indirectly related to fossil energy consumption and environmental pollution. The life cycle assessment (LCA) of PHES plants becomes crucial in assisting their green and low-carbon development. Up to the present, there are several published studies on the LCA of PHES systems that compare the results to those of other energy storage systems such as CAES and LIB [50,51]. Table 1 summarizes the relevant LCA studies. It can be easily found that all the studies covered the cradle-to-grave of the PHES plants to examine their environmental performance. However, the functional units (FU) used as the basis for results comparison differed significantly among different studies, making it impossible to directly compare their results. For instance, most studies used 1 kWh or 1 GWh of delivered electricity as the functional unit; however, in Stougie et al. [52], it was 10 kWh of storage capacity, and in Guo et al. [53], it was 1 kW. Despite the different functional units used in these studies, most studies concluded that the PHES systems obtained better environmental performance than other energy storage technologies. In addition, the percentage of renewable energy in the power grid has a significant impact on the environmental performance of PHES [50,51,54]. Finally, it can be seen that the LCA studies of Chinese PHES systems are still lacking, although China is a leader in PHES development in the world. Thus, more LCA studies of local PHES plants in China should be conducted to assist their green and low-carbon development.

3.3. Disturbances to Local Residents

As mentioned in Section 3.1, the construction of PHES plants requires occupying a large amount of land resources, which would inevitably involve issues such as land expropriation and compensation, as well as the resettlement of affected residents. For instance, the Qingyuan PHES plant built in Liaoning Province involved 578 resettled persons for production and 377 resettled persons for relocation, according to its design report. These residents face the challenge of livelihood transformation after losing their land, and a simple one-time monetary compensation can hardly meet their long-term needs [56]. Meanwhile, the construction process would be accompanied by ecological damages, as well as the emission of various types of pollutants and noise interference. These may affect the daily life of the residents on a larger scale, which may bring huge social resistance to the development of the PHES projects [17,57]. In fact, this could be one of the reasons for the shift from PHES systems to various new energy storage systems in many developed countries. Besides, the construction and operation of PHES plants require significant water resources; however, as mentioned before, they are primarily located on tributaries, where the water resources are not so abundant. Thus, their development might lead to social controversies, such as conflicts with rural irrigation and household water access.
On the other side, it could create some job opportunities for local people during the construction and operation of the PHES plants [58]. Since the PHES development in rural areas is usually accompanied by the construction of roads and other infrastructure, it also contributes to the promotion of rural economic development [59].

4. Recommendations for Sustainable PHES Development

It can be seen that the PHES systems will be indispensable for the sustainable energy transition in China. Thus, in view of the aforementioned multidimensional impacts induced by the construction and operation of PHES plants, the following suggestions are put forward to promote the green and sustainable PHES development.
Firstly, the rational planning of new PHES plants should be strengthened to optimize their distribution and to avoid blind expansion. Before the design of new plants, a comprehensive assessment should be conducted, including the power system demands, site conditions, and ecological protection requirements to optimize their distribution on a larger scale. Besides, strict preliminary exploration, planning, and feasibility analysis should also be carefully conducted to determine appropriate geographical locations and installed capacity of new PHES plants. In doing so, coordinated development of PHES and ecological protection can be achieved.
Secondly, when building new PHES plants, investors should optimize the engineering design and implement ecological protection measures to minimize disturbances to local terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. For example, they can strengthen environmental supervision during the complex construction process, restore vegetation after the completion of construction, and release downstream environmental flows during the operation period. In the central and western regions of China, they can consider upgrading and transforming the existing cascade small and medium-sized hydropower plants into hybrid PHES plants. These plants can use the abundant water resources to generate electricity in flood seasons and operate as energy storage systems in dry seasons to better support local wind and solar power development [60]. These kinds of new PHES construction modes can effectively reduce disturbances to local ecosystems.
Thirdly, some studies have shown that the life-cycle environmental emissions of PHES plants are lower than those of new energy storage technologies such as LIB and CAES systems. The PHES system can be regarded as a green and low-carbon energy storage technology [50,52]. However, considering that the PHES is still a power-consuming system during the operation period, i.e., generally using 4 kWh of electricity to produce 3 kWh of electricity, its life-cycle environmental emissions still need to be considered. Thus, the design of new PHES plants should be optimized. For instance, the pumped storage units with higher operational efficiency, e.g., variable-speed units, can be adopted to reduce electricity consumption during the operation period. New construction techniques and good construction practices can be adopted to reduce energy use during the construction process. Additionally, environmentally friendly construction materials can be applied to further improve environmental performance, such as the substitution of glass-reinforced plastic pipes for steel pipes.
Finally, social concerns such as land expropriation and resettlement of residents should be reduced as much as possible during the planning of new PHES plants. More importantly, decision-makers should explore practical pathways to enable a wide range of resettled residents and even local residents to share the benefits of the PHES development. For example, investors in PHES plants may consider investing in local transportation, agricultural irrigation facilities, and other supporting facilities that can improve the productivity and living standards of local residents. It requires full participation by both the PHES investors and local governments.

5. Conclusions

This study reviews the development trajectory and future planning of the PHES industry in China and identifies its multidimensional impacts. Although PHES development in China started late, its total installed capacity in operation reached 50.94 GW in 2023, making it the largest in the world and contributing to the stable operation of regional power grids in North China, East China, and South China. Besides this, more than 300 PHES plants are under construction or in the planning stage across the country to support the large-scale development of renewable energy and sustainable energy transition. However, its development requires a large amount of land resources (a total of 291.81 km2 will be required by 2030), and most plants are located on tributaries, where the water resources are not so abundant; thus, it inevitably induces disturbances to local ecosystems and residents. Meanwhile, it also produces certain life-cycle environmental impacts. To promote the green and sustainable PHES development in China, decision-makers should strengthen the rational planning of new plants to optimize their spatial distribution and avoid blind expansion. Moreover, the engineering design of the PHES plants should be optimized to reduce disturbances to local ecosystems and the life-cycle environmental impacts. Possible pathways to share the benefits from PHES development by a wide range of local residents should be further explored. Future research could focus on the comprehensive assessment of these ecological, environmental, and social impacts derived from the PHES development using different systemic research methods.

Supplementary Materials

The following supporting information can be downloaded at: https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/en18071801/s1, Table S1. Detailed information of the PHES plants put into operation in China by the end of 2024.

Author Contributions

M.P.: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing; Y.D.: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing—original draft; W.P.: Investigation; P.Z.: Writing—review & editing; J.Y.: Writing—review & editing; L.Z.: Conceptualization, Data curation, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Writing—review & editing. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 52170176, 52225902, 72161147003).

Data Availability Statement

Data will be made available on request.

Conflicts of Interest

Author Juhua Yang was employed by the China Huadian Corporation. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Energies 18 01801 g001
Figure 1. The installed capacity of PHES plants in different regions of the world during 2017–2023 (Data source: [14,18,19,20,21,22,23]).
Figure 1. The installed capacity of PHES plants in different regions of the world during 2017–2023 (Data source: [14,18,19,20,21,22,23]).
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Figure 2. The PHES development in China (Data source: [30,31,32,33]).
Figure 2. The PHES development in China (Data source: [30,31,32,33]).
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Figure 3. Distribution of PHES plants in China by the end of 2024. (a) In operation; (b) Under construction.
Figure 3. Distribution of PHES plants in China by the end of 2024. (a) In operation; (b) Under construction.
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Figure 4. Distribution of the proposed PHES projects in China.
Figure 4. Distribution of the proposed PHES projects in China.
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Figure 5. Land use intensity of different occupation types.
Figure 5. Land use intensity of different occupation types.
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Table 1. Summary of PHES life cycle assessment studies.
Table 1. Summary of PHES life cycle assessment studies.
ReferenceCountrySystem BoundaryFunctional UnitEnergy MixGHG Emissions
(g CO2-eq/FU)		Main Conclusions
Denholm and Kulcinski [54]USACradle-to-grave1 GWh of delivered electricity-5.6PHES has lower GHG emissions when combined with renewable energy than battery energy storage or CAES.
Oliveira et al. [50]SwitzerlandCradle-to-grave1 kWh of delivered electricityBelgium 2011 Electricity mixAbout 230Sodium-sulfur batteries performed best, with pumped storage second.
Abdon et al. [55]SwitzerlandCradle-to-grave1 kWh of delivered electricitySwiss electricity grid mixAbout 150–470PHES and adiabatic CAES show the best performance.
Kapila et al. [51]USACradle-to-grave1 kWh of delivered electricityCanada average211.09PHES outperforms CAES, and GHG emissions are dominated by the operation stage.
Stougie et al. [52]NorwayCradle-to-grave10 kWh of storage capacityElectricity, low voltage, production NL, at grid740,000The PHES system is preferred from an environmental sustainability point of view.
Guo et al. [53]ChinaCradle-to-grave1 kW--Conventional PHES: 314,605CPHES has better performance in terms of economy and environment than UPHES.
Guo et al. [53]ChinaCradle-to-grave1 kW--Underground PHES: 658,655
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Pang, M.; Du, Y.; Pei, W.; Zhang, P.; Yang, J.; Zhang, L. Pumped Hydro Energy Storage Plants in China: Increasing Demand and Multidimensional Impacts Identification. Energies 2025, 18, 1801. https://doi.org/10.3390/en18071801

AMA Style

Pang M, Du Y, Pei W, Zhang P, Yang J, Zhang L. Pumped Hydro Energy Storage Plants in China: Increasing Demand and Multidimensional Impacts Identification. Energies. 2025; 18(7):1801. https://doi.org/10.3390/en18071801

Chicago/Turabian Style

Pang, Mingyue, Yan Du, Wenjie Pei, Pengpeng Zhang, Juhua Yang, and Lixiao Zhang. 2025. "Pumped Hydro Energy Storage Plants in China: Increasing Demand and Multidimensional Impacts Identification" Energies 18, no. 7: 1801. https://doi.org/10.3390/en18071801

APA Style

Pang, M., Du, Y., Pei, W., Zhang, P., Yang, J., & Zhang, L. (2025). Pumped Hydro Energy Storage Plants in China: Increasing Demand and Multidimensional Impacts Identification. Energies, 18(7), 1801. https://doi.org/10.3390/en18071801

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