Battery and Fuel cell Technology

Batteries in Renewable Sources and Grid Balancing

Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries have been in use for many years in consumer and automotive applications due to their superior energy density and environmentally friendly attributes. The demand for Sodium Sulphur batteries as an effective means of stabilizing renewable energy output and providing ancillary services is expanding. U.S. utilities have deployed 9 MW for peak shaving, backup power, firming wind capacity, and other applications. Grid storage is probably the battery industry’s toughest challenge yet. More often it seems that in many projects happening now, energy storage systems are expected to do not one, but often several things. It’s partly the result of how the electricity grids are regulated, where storage is too expensive to be solely a generation or a distribution asset, so its value is extracted by measuring out a multiplicity of different services and functions, over the system’s lifetime.