Climate of Our Future

Climate Crisis Coalition

Utility Will Use Batteries to Store Wind Power
By Matthew L. Wald, The New York Times, September 11, 2007
“American Electric Power, a coal-burning utility company that is looking for ways to connect more wind power to its grid, plans to announce today [Tuesday] that it will install huge banks of high-technology batteries. The batteries are costly and their use at such a big scale has not been demonstrated, but they may be an essential complement to renewable power, experts say… The investment would position the company well if any of the 11 states in its service territory establish a minimum quota for renewable energy, or if Congress sets a national standard, company executives said; it would also help if carbon controls were instituted and wind power were to gain a financial advantage over coal… The batteries can each deliver one megawatt of power — enough to run a medium-size shopping center — for a little more than seven hours. Replenished nightly, they give back about 80 percent of the electricity put into them. Each is the size of a double-decker bus, and installation is not permanent; they can be moved to another site as the need arises. The batteries will be built by NGK Insulators NGK Insulators, Ltd. They use a sodium sulfur chemistry and operate at temperatures of more than 800 degrees Fahrenheit. And while the batteries are large by the standards of previous installations, they are small relative to wind production; one battery would hold about as much energy as a single large wind machine could produce in a day, Mr. DeMeo pointed out. And they are small relative to total energy demand.”