Engineering360: "Wind/Hydropower Plant Set for Testing"

For quite some time I have wondered why a hydraulic pump is not placed attop the tower instead of a generator. The pump could take wind gusts without being damaged as much as a generator gear set. The generator could be at the base of the tower and be rotated by a hydraulic motor. This way the tower could be of much lighter construction and maintaining all of the electronics could be done without climbing the tower. Also, a "flat land hydraulic battery system" could consist of many hydraulic pumping turbines pressurizing a central storage tank that would be similar, in some ways, to some natural gas storage tanks, in that its' roof would rise and fall with the water level. The difference is that this roof would be a multithousand ton concrete dome connected to three pinions traveling on vertical racks to keep the roof level. A series of seals along the perimeter of the roof would contain the pressure which then could be released to run the central generator as needed.