An underground power station is a type of hydroelectric power station constructed by excavating the major components (e.g. machine hall, penstocks, and tailrace) from rock, rather than the more common surface-based construction methods.
Often underground power stations form part of pumped storage hydroelectricity schemes, whose basic function is to level load: they use cheap or surplus off-peak power to pump water from a lower lake to an upper lake, then, during peak periods (when electricity prices are often high), the power station generates power from the water held in the upper lake.
Read more about Underground Power Station: Notable Examples
Famous quotes containing the words underground, power and/or station:
“An underground grower, blind and a common brown;
Got a misshapen look, it’s nudged where it could;
Simple as soil yet crowded as earth with all.”
—Richard Wilbur (b. 1921)
“No punishment has ever possessed enough power of deterrence to prevent the commission of crimes. On the contrary, whatever the punishment, once a specific crime has appeared for the first time, its reappearance is more likely than its initial emergence could ever have been.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“How soon country people forget. When they fall in love with a city it is forever, and it is like forever. As though there never was a time when they didn’t love it. The minute they arrive at the train station or get off the ferry and glimpse the wide streets and the wasteful lamps lighting them, they know they are born for it. There, in a city, they are not so much new as themselves: their stronger, riskier selves.”
—Toni Morrison (b. 1931)