A big battery with big potential - Xcel Energy’s 1-megawatt storage unit

www.finance-commerce.com
April 28, 2010

For renewable power generators, sodium-based batteries could be the answer to the cyclical nature of wind and solar energy generation. Both wind and solar have faced criticism that they are intermittent sources of power, generating renewable energy when the wind blows or the sun shines. But after General Electric unveiled its Durathon brand battery last week, it is apparent that the industrial giant plans to make waves with electric utilities and other businesses in need of substantial back-up power.

"This is big," said Jody Janson, president of Rochester, N.Y.-based financial consultancy istockanalyst.com, referring to the prospect of significant storage capacity of energy to use when it's needed. It's big because a company the size of General Electric is entering the field by spending $150 million to refurbish an existing battery manufacturing plant in Schenectady, N.Y. That plant, which is expected to employ 350, received a $25.5 million federal stimulus package tax credit in addition a $15 million-plus incentives package from the state of New York for the project, which is scheduled to be complete by mid-2011.

GE's Durathon products are designed to serve the rail, marine, mining, telecommunications and electric utility sectors with sodium-based batteries that are capable of lasting 20 years and are not sensitive to temperature extremes. In the short run, the most likely buyers of Durathon batteries are utilities interested in storing wind or solar power for times when that energy is needed. Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy in 2008 installed a oneMW wind-to-battery system near Luverne as the first wind-to-battery back-up power storage system in Minnesota.

Xcel Energy partnered with the University of Minnesota, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Great Plains Institute and Minwind Energy LLC, an 11MW wind farm located adjacent to the hulking gray battery, on the wind-to-battery project. Patti Nystuen, spokeswoman for Xcel Energy, said the officials for the utility intend to issue results of the battery's performance in June. Xcel Energy it is not the first utility to test back-up storage for electricity - Ohio-based American Electric Power has been testing battery storage of power for several years.

Another Minnesota utility, Maple Grove-based Great River Energy, is continuing to seek ways to store energy generated by wind turbines but the has no plans to purchase GE's new Durathon battery at this time, said Therese LaCanne, Great River spokeswoman. Chris Banocy, a spokesman for GE Transportation, the GE business unit that oversees manufacturing of the Durathon batteries, said, "We've gotten a very strong response from the utility sector." Banocy said the Durathon brand batteries are scalable in size, and contain two-by-two-inch columns of sodium-halide material 10 inches long that are combined to make each Durathon battery.

The sodium-halide GE Durathon battery differs from the battery being tested in southwest Minnesota by Xcel Energy, which has a sodium-sulfur base. "I think we're going to be very competitive," said GE Transportation's Banocy, referring to Durathon's pricing. He declined to say how prices for Durathon batteries. "In any industry, energy back-up is key," he said, adding that it's especially crucial for intermittent power generating sources like wind farms and solar arrays. For the renewable energy industry, if battery production and usage becomes widespread, Janson said, "That is the holy grail, my friend."