Maybe the vanadium flow cells were more expensive. -----Original Message----- From: Jed Rothwell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2007 12:35 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [Vo]:Utility plans 1,000 MW of batteries including PHEV
A power utility is installing gigantic sodium sulfur batteries that store 7 MWH each. It also plans to use customer's PHEV as temporary storage. See: Utility Will Use Batteries to Store Wind Power http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/11/business/11battery.html AEP to Deploy Additional Large-Scale Batteries on Distribution Grid http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/prnewswire/CLTU05611092007- 1.htm Quote from ref # 1: "A.E.P. intends to have 1,000 megawatts of energy storage on its system in the next decade, according to the company, and at least 25 megawatts from batteries of this type. A range of options is available for the remainder of the storage, including the use of plug-in hybrid cars, Mr. English said. The idea behind plug-in hybrids is that the owner of a car would charge the batteries every night when demand and cost of electricity were low. The next day, under a contract between the utility company and the driver, the car would be left plugged when not in use, and the power company could reverse the flow of electricity and draw power out of its batteries during times of peak demand. Enough power would be left in the batteries to start the engine, so that a driver returning to a drained car could still run it on gasoline until the batteries could be charged again at night. It would take more than 1,000 such vehicles to equal one of the sodium-sulfur batteries, however." In a related development, EEStor's supercapacitor has been in the mainstream news a lot lately. That would be way better than sodium sulfur batteries that operate at 800 deg F and are only 80% efficient full cycle. - Jed
