1980 | O’Neill Forebay, San Luis Dam
Here’s an idea: you need electric power in the hot California afternoons, but the nights are cooler and there’s less demand for power overnight. So why don’t you take some water out of the supply running in the California Aqueduct toward the south, and borrow it in this pool, then at night pump this water up into the San Luis Reservoir above, and store it until the next afternoon, when you can swap the fields on the pump motors and turn them into generators, drop the upper water down through them and make lower-cost extra power to send down the lines to the air-conditioners? It’s actually the same water and the same energy (less certain losses of efficiency), but the dollar cost differential is significant, and engineers make this sleight-of-hand pay off.