The man who keeps the electrons flowing inside one of Austria’s oldest power plants is actually often caught off guard when its turbines thrum to life with the thumping baritone of a giant washing machine.
The Kaprun hydroelectric station may be 70 years old, but Helmut Biberger’s job is to ensure it can handle the rapid swings in modern electricity markets. He’s helped rig the facility to generate power at a moment’s notice, using a network of winding tunnels and reservoirs built into the side of the country’s tallest mountains.
The station functions as a giant battery, by using energy when it’s abundant–and cheap–to pump water to a mountaintop reservoir. There it sits in the bluest of blue Alpine lakes until power demand spikes. At that moment traders 250 miles away in Vienna open the dam, spilling that same water downhill to spin those turbines, and selling the resulting electricity at higher prices.
For decades, plants like this one owned by utility Verbund AG were a little-seen corner of the electricity grid. Now, they’re getting fresh attention across Europe and the U.S. as governments struggle to accommodate the surging supplies from wind and solar, peaks that can overwhelm networks on clear and windy days. No less than the iconic Hoover Dam in the U.S. is being considered for a $3 billion retrofit that would allow the station to adopt the technology.
“It’s all remote controlled—a marvel of engineering,” said Biberger, 59, just as machines in the Limberg II generating hall started to whir, something it does five or six times a day.
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