Wind-Battery Project

[Yo_Mama]

http://www.energyboom.com/wind/largest-battery-wind-farm-goes-online

A new 97.6-megawatt battery-storage wind power facility is now online in West Virginia. The installation represents the world's largest lithium-ion-based wind energy storage project and the biggest advanced battery clean energy project in the United States.

Laurel Mountain will deliver 260,000 MWh of clean, flexible power to the grid, helping supply electricity to residents and business in 13 eastern states and the District of Columbia—the largest power market in the world. The farm, built by the wind generation and energy storage wings of global power provider AES Corporation (NYSE: AES), uses 61 GE 1.6 MW wind turbine generators and 32 MW of A123 Systems energy storage devices.

Note that they are building smaller power reserves in two other states.

[kristopher]

1. Why is co-locating wind and storage desirable?

[Yo_Mama]

2. I don't know that it is

But of course the battery tech is not necessarily cojoined with the wind. Those other two projects are just to be used to even out power, I think.

For wind producers, storage on-site might be used as the pairing of biomass and wind has been in Germany - to allow a steadier feed of power into the grid.

I forget who it was, but some person who regularly comments on this board commented that there had to be a commercial opportunity in energy storage as the cost of reserve power goes up, which it necessarily will. These A123 units are very expensive, though.

[kristopher]

3. The answer is that unless there are pre-existing local grid reliability issues, it isn't.

There could be an opportunity to qualify for government support also, at this early stage of battery storage roll-out. Projects like this have a certain 'wow factor' that helps attract funding.