Farmers are famously self-reliant. Why not use farm dams as mini-hydro plants?

• When you live far from the cities, it makes sense to do as much as possible yourself.
• Australia’s sheer size has meant many remote farms have long been off grid as it’s often simply too expensive to get a power connection.
• But for those still on the grid, there are now new options.
• As solar gets cheaper, more and more farms are aiming to become self-reliant in power.

Massive to micro? Yes, pumped hydro can work on farms

• Queensland’s government is planning massive pumped hydro schemes to act as batteries.
• For farmers, another opportunity is the ability to use existing dams and reduce pumped hydro construction costs.
• And it’s likely the solution won’t work for farms on flat ground – you need a drop of at least 20 metres.
• We compared a micro pumped hydro system with 42.6kWh capacity and able to discharge 3.6kW to a commercial lithium-ion battery, the Tesla Powerwall, able to store 13.5kWh and discharge 5.0kW.
• We found micro pumped hydro storage was 30% cheaper than a battery if locally generated solar was regularly needed overnight – such as to power a 24/7 irrigation system.

Australia has thousands of potential sites

• Our research is the first continent-wide assessment of potential pumped hydro farm dam sites.
• How did we figure out how many sites would suit micro pumped hydro?
• That’s how we came up with our figure of 30,000 promising sites, including dam-to-dam and dam-to-river sites.

What’s next for this approach?

• If you’re farming wheat on flat plains, you’re unlikely to have the slope needed to make it work.
• For instance, if you’re in a drought-prone area with limited groundwater, it may not make sense to install pumped hydro.
• Our research assumes 70% of the water in the dams is available for use, which does not account for droughts or irrigation needs.
• Martino Malerba is supported by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council (project ID DE220100752)