- Problem: How does a remote town deal with frequent power outages and fluctuations?
- Solution: A battery that holds 4 Megawatts of electricity.
Large-scale battery storage is still a long way off.
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We like to say everything’s bigger in Texas. Some things really are. Batteries. BIG batteries. Today, on Engineering Works. Listen to the podcast
This story of batteries starts in the West Texas town of Presidio, on the banks of the Rio Grande. Presidio is one of those West Texas towns that’s pretty far away from just about everything. It gets its electric power over one aging transmission line – 60 miles across the rugged Davis Mountains from the equally small town of Marfa. Now and then, when storms blow through, that transmission line fails and Presidio goes dark. Even when the power’s on, current fluctuations knock computers offline and interfere with electrical appliances.
So the town got together with the electric transmission authorities and got a battery. A big one. Eighty-eight thousand modules that store 4 Megawatts of electricity -- enough to power the town for eight hours.
The system also features sensors and switches to respond almost instantly to current fluctuations in addition to outages. This battery uses a little-known sodium-sulfur storage technology instead of better known systems like lithium-ion batteries.
The installation in Presidio is the fourth big battery system like it in the United States. If they work out, they may point the way toward large-scale storage that could even out the electrical highs and lows in a future power system that depends more on wind and solar energy than now.
Our battery is topped off, so we’re going to plug in and head out. See you next time.
Engineering Works! is made possible by Texas A&M Engineering and produced by KAMU-FM in College Station.
Tags: Batteries, Electricity, Engineering, Sensors, Solar Power,
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