Open pits or deep mines used for Underground Pumped Storage Hydroelectricity (UPSH): impacts on groundwater exchanges

UPSH using abandoned works is an attractive alternative to improve the efficiency of power plants, which cannot regulate the amount of electricity generated according to the demand (wind, solar or nuclear). UPSH plants can store (pumping water from an underground to an upper reservoir) or produce energy (releasing water from an upper to an underground reservoir) during the low or high demand periods. However, it is mandatory to determine 1) the impacts caused on aquifers and 2) the role played by the aquifer characteristics in order to assess the suitability of UPSH plants.
Numerical simulations are developed in order to ascertain the groundwater flow impacts and the variables involved in the process. Given the earlier stages of our study, results are obtained considering regular pumping-injection cycles and simplifying the shape of the mine/open pit. The most noticeable effect consists in an oscillation of the groundwater. The hydraulic head around which groundwater oscillates, the magnitude of the oscillations and the time to achieve a pseudo-steady state (magnitude and head reached during oscillations do not vary anymore with time) depend on the boundaries, the parameters of the aquifer and the characteristics of the underground reservoir.