That's a neat story. Reminds me of an older technology, which I have only heard about but I've never seen, which is using a large flywheel as a storage device. Hook that up to a motor-generator, so when the utility power is available, the flywheel gets brought up to speed, and then when the utility power drops, use the inertia to drive the generator until another source is brought online.
Maybe fill up an old missile silo with massive flywheels, use that as a "battery" to store wind or solar that is not needed. ------------- Max Charleston SC On Mon, Oct 21, 2019 at 9:23 AM Andrew Strasfogel via Mercedes < mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote: > Quite surprising. > > TECHNOLOGYBig batteries are all the rage, but this one's 16 years > oldPublished: > Monday, October 21, 2019 > > New York City dove headlong into the race to build bigger and bigger > batteries this week, as regulators approved plans for a massive system > < > https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-17/long-island-city-will-soon-be-home-to-new-york-s-biggest-battery > > > on the East River in Queens. > > But for those keeping score, the biggest of all has been quietly at work > for almost 16 years in a far more remote corner of America: a warehouse in > central Alaska. > > The 46-megawatt battery, in Fairbanks, uses a chemistry that's largely gone > the way of fax machines. It's old enough that its operators can't find > replacement parts for some components. But it still works, keeping the > lights in the city of 32,000 near the Arctic Circle, preventing 59 > blackouts last year alone. > > "Our system operators are very adamant that they don't want it to go away," > said Dan Bishop, manager of engineering services for the Golden Valley > Electric Association, which owns the battery. > > The push to install bigger and bigger batteries on U.S. electric grids > comes as the price of lithium-ion systems has plummeted and states try to > squeeze out fossil fuels. By soaking up excess power and dispatching it > when demand spikes, batteries can help keep grids stable and smoothly > incorporate ebbs and flows of wind and solar. They can also displace so > called peaker natural-gas plants that kick in only when demand surges. > > Dubbed the BESS <https://www.gvea.com/energy/bess>, for Battery Energy > Storage System, the array in Alaska uses 13,760 nickel-cadmium cells, > stacked in rows. Guinness World Records certified it as the world's most > powerful battery when it was commissioned in 2003. It's since lost its > global crown as systems including Tesla Inc.'s 100-megawatt battery in > Australia have come online. > > Now several installations planned in the U.S. are poised to eclipse it, > too. > > In California, Tesla is building a 182.5-megawatt installation for PG&E > Corp. In Florida, NextEra Energy Inc.'s Florida Power & Light utility is > planning > < > https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-28/the-race-to-build-the-world-s-largest-solar-storage-plant-is-on > > > a 409-megawatt battery pack. Meanwhile, New York's battery at the > Ravenswood power plant in Long Island City will be built in three phases, > with the first coming online in 2021. > > But for now, the BESS remains king. > > For the record, the U.S. Energy Department considers BESS to be tied > <https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=40072> with a battery in > California as the country's largest, listing the capacity of both at 40 > megawatts. Golden Valley, however, says its system in Alaska weighs in at > 46 megawatts. > > Designed by ABB Ltd. with cells from Saft Groupe SA, the $35 million system > kicks in whenever there's an interruption in electricity supply. The > Alaskan interior lacks the densely woven web of power lines found in much > of the country, and blackouts used to be common, said Tom DeLong, chairman > of Golden Valley's board of directors. > > "We were islanded — we had basically one big extension cord down to > Anchorage," he said. "Everyone in Fairbanks, when I was here in the '70s > and '80s, had a generator in their garage." > > As such, the BESS represents an earlier generation of energy-storage > projects, BloombergNEF analyst Logan Goldie-Scot said. The large-scale > batteries now being installed provide a variety of services: helping > maintain grid stability, storing excess electricity from wind and solar and > in some cases replacing small power plants. But in BESS's day, large > batteries often served relatively remote communities that needed a backup > power source in a pinch, Goldie-Scot said. > > Like any aging system, BESS needs work. Half its cells have been replaced, > and the control system now needs an upgrade or replacement. Golden Valley, > however, has no plans to ditch it. > > "Not unlike your other computer-based things, after a certain amount of > time, the chips aren't made anymore," Bishop said. *— David R. Baker, > Bloomberg* > _______________________________________ > http://www.okiebenz.com > > To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ > > To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: > http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com > > _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
