Mobile Batteries Will Help Prevent Outages
NEW YORK – Con Edison is developing a mobile battery system that will supply neighborhoods with clean power and help prevent outages.
The energy company, taking advantage of fast-evolving energy storage technology, plans to have by the summer of 2017 a trailer-mounted battery system that will store 500 kilowatts and provide up to 800 kilowatt hours of electricity.
When demand soars – which usually occurs on hot summer days – the company’s operators would send the system to a neighborhood and hook it up to the electrical delivery network. They would then discharge the electricity to ensure that residents and businesses have the cooling, lighting and appliances they need.
“This innovation will be another tool for us to use to make sure New Yorkers have reliable service when they need it most,” said Margarett Jolly, Con Edison’s director of Research and Development. “Technology is giving us new ways every day to provide reliable, resilient service and we want to be thorough in looking into every potential opportunity.”
Using the storage system will be cleaner and quieter than dispatching a diesel generator as a temporary, localized source of power. The system will be capable of providing 100 kilowatts for eight hours.
The company expects to take delivery of the system later this year. It will then conduct its own testing.
Con Edison is developing the unit – called a Transportable Energy Storage System – with Electrovaya Inc., a company in Ontario that designs and builds lithium ion battery systems.
For the summer of 2016, Con Edison spent $1.6 billion on upgrades to its delivery system. The enhancements included adding 12 network transformers, 70 overhead transformers, 16 underground feeder sections connecting manhole structures and transformer vaults, 37 overhead sections of power lines, and reinforcement of 25 electric feeders.
Con Edison engineers also created a new underground electric network to help meet growing energy needs on the west side of midtown Manhattan, particularly with the development of massive Hudson Yards residential and commercial complex.
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