New Scientific Publication within the HESS Project

We are pleased to announce that a new article has been published in the journal Energies, authored by P. Matusiak, D. Kowol, R. Baron, P. Friebe, M. Lutyński, K. Kołodziej, A. Czardybon, and K. Ignasiak, entitled “Preliminary Technical and Pumping-Energy Assessment of an Underground Pumped-Storage Hydropower System Using a Post-Mining Shaft as the Lower Reservoir” (Energies 2026, 19(17), 4211).

The publication was prepared as part of the project “Hybrid Energy Storage System Using Post-Mining Infrastructure” (HESS, Grant Agreement No. 10111280). The project is co-funded by the Research Fund for Coal and Steel (RFCS) and the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

The publication presents the results of work related to the development of an underground pumped-storage hydropower concept, which constitutes one of the key components of the hybrid energy storage system. The article provides a preliminary technical assessment of the use of the Budryk II Shaft as the lower PSH reservoir, taking into account, among other aspects, shaft geometry, hydraulic conditions, turbine and generator selection, the pipeline system, as well as structural and sealing solutions. The presented results confirm the potential of using existing post-mining infrastructure for the development of large-scale energy storage systems.

The article is available Open Access: https://doi.org/10.3390/en19174211

We invite you to read the article!