The large-scale development of renewable energy generation such as wind energy and solar energy has brought enormous pressure to the safety and stability of the power system. Power system is in urgent need to configure large capacity energy storage systems, compensate power change, and adapt to the large-scale development of new energy sources. More importantly, the demand for load adjustment has recently been very urgent because of low power load rate and fast power fluctuation. The best solution to the problem of safety and stability of power grid, caused by large-scale development of new energy such as wind power, is to install pumped storage station in an appropriate scale. This paper analyzes the pumped storage technology principle and characteristics, expounds the new trend of pumped storage technology development:the construction technology of extra high water head and high capacity; manufacturing technology of large capacity pump turbine; rotor AC excitation technology of variable speed pumped storage units and full size converter technology; the construction and operation technology of pumped storage station for coastal and alpine regions. This paper focuses on the variable speed pumped storage technology, presents the overall structure of the double feed mode and full size converter mode, and puts forward the control strategy in different modes. The composition, technical challenges and solutions of the new special pumped storage power station are also presented in this paper.

VSPS  /  full-size converter  /  seawater pumped storage  /  alpine area pumped storage  /  renewable energy  /  stability of electric power system