Grid-scale, long-duration energy storage has been widely recognized as an important means to address the intermittency of wind and solar power. This Comment explores the potential of using existing large-scale hydropower systems for long-duration and seasonal energy storage, highlighting technological challenges and future research directions for pumped-storage renovation.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 digital issues and online access to articles
$119.00 per year
only $9.92 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on SpringerLink
- Instant access to the full article PDF.
USD 39.95
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References
Luo, X. et al. Resilience of renewable power systems under climate risks. Nat. Rev. Electr. Eng. 1, 53–66 (2024).
Zhanwei, L. et al. Balancing-oriented hydropower operation makes the clean energy transition more affordable and simultaneously boosts water security. Nat. Water 1, 778–789 (2023).
Mengke, L. et al. Long-term multi-objective optimal scheduling for large cascaded hydro-wind-photovoltaic complementary systems considering short-term peak-shaving demands. Energy Conver. Manag. 301, 118063 (2024).
Julian, D. H. et al. A review of seasonal pumped-storage combined with dams in cascade in Brazil. Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev. 70, 385–398 (2017).
Internation Hydropower Association. 2024 World hydropower outlook; https://go.nature.com/40yyqQ0 (2024).
China Renewable Energy Engineering Institute. China Renewable Energy Engineering Cost Management Report 2023 (2024).
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U23A20667, 52239001 and 52079014).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Shen, J., Wang, Y., Hao, T. et al. Pumped-storage renovation for grid-scale, long-duration energy storage. Nat Rev Electr Eng 2, 79–80 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44287-025-00143-z
Published:
Version of record:
Issue date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44287-025-00143-z
This article is cited by
-
Pumped storage hydropower operation for supporting clean energy systems
Nature Reviews Clean Technology (2025)
-
Quantifying the impact of extreme weather on China’s hydropower–wind–solar renewable energy system
Nature Water (2025)