Sunday, June 22, 2014

Batteries Coming to Texas

"Now Oncor, Texas’ largest power transmission company, is joining the ranks investing in battery technology as the industry’s next big thing.
The Dallas-based company plans to install five refrigerator-size batteries in residential neighborhoods in South Dallas to see how the equipment performs as a backup during power outages. Made from lithium, the same material used to charge cellphones and electric cars, they store enough electricity to keep three or four homes running for an hour.
The investment is minuscule, $1 million including a sixth battery to be installed at an Oncor facility. The company's capital budget exceeded $1 billion last year. But CEO Bob Shapard described the move as Oncor’s first step into a technology he believes could one day revolutionize how electricity is generated and used.
“The math isn’t there yet, but the companies know they all need to get there,” he said. “We’re probably five years away” from wide-scale adoption. “It sounds like a long time, but for our business that’s pretty quick.”
The so-called holy grail of battery storage is to reach the critical mass where technologies like wind and solar power can supply the majority of the power on the grid.
Right now both play a limited role because of the inconsistency of sunlight and wind. But if there were a way to economically store electricity, then the so-called variability problem becomes irrelevant. And the grid, which now relies on a near perfect harmony of generation and consumption, would be turned on its head."

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