Rural Australia is pockmarked with small dams. Researchers say they could also be 'batteries'

Australia along with the rest of the world, is embarking on the largest energy transition in history as we seek to wean ourselves off fossil fuels and combat the dangerous climate change they are causing.

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has identified energy storage as the most pressing need of the next decade in that transition.

Storage capacity needs to be increased around 17-fold by 2050, and AEMO has singled out large-scale pumped hydro as a key strategy in helping to stabilise the grid.

But although micro-pumped-hydro energy storage won't play a role in grid storage, Dr Gilmore said it may still help rural Australians reduce their own emissions while stabilising their own energy supplies.

"There was a survey they did in the US and ... one of the really interesting stats was, if you'd experienced an outage in the last six months, you were four times as likely to get a solar and battery system, as opposed to just a solar system.

"So I think security is a big one. People want to feel like they've got a reliable power supply."

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Source: Nick Kilvert, ABC Science, 7 Sept 2023.