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A state Senate bill, SB 147, would add a type of energy storage to the state’s list of clean energy resources — such as wind and solar. Underground pumped storage hydropower generates energy by passing water through a turbine as it moves from a higher reservoir to a lower one.
This technology can store power from wind, solar, or even coal. It’s been around for decades and accounts for most utility-scale energy storage in the U.S. But it hasn’t been used much in Indiana.
Peter Schubert, with IUPUI’s Lugar Center for Renewable Energy, said that’s likely because much of the state is too flat to create the higher and lower water reservoirs.
But the caverns left by abandoned coal mines, gypsum mines and limestone quarries could open up a new opportunity for the technology in Indiana…