Meanwhile in Germany:
I know. It never generates more than it consumes so it has negative production overall. Or is this a real-time chart despite saying “past 12 months”?
“consumption takes imports and exports into account, production ignores them”
Yes, they are part of the water cycle, sometimes collecting water from a significant area, but usually not. This is the upper reservoir of our largest hydro storage plant:
Rain is only collected over the area of the reservoir, and it would only fill up a few centimeters on a rainy day. In fact, the water evaporates quicker than that so a lake would never naturally form in this location.
Are all hydro storage like that though? It doesn’t seem too outlandish to think of a hydro storage plant that is also fed by a river
I think the idea is that it only uses excess energy that would otherwise be wasted to fill it, so it kind of generates energy as it’s essentially filled for free.
