Wind batteries get prairie test 80-ton energy storers 'act like independent power plants'
| November 19, 2008 |  View for printing |
Farmers in Case International combines worked to get their corn out of the fields as snow fell Monday, harvesting within 20 feet of the first wind-to-battery storage test in the United States.
The 80-ton sodium-sulfur battery - 20 50-megawatt units which combined are the size of two semi trailers stacked - was refined in Japan. Xcel Energy has teamed with MinWind Energy to test the units at MinWind's 11.5-megawatt wind farm west of Luverne.
When the wind blows, the batteries charge. When it doesn't, the batteries can supply 1 megawatt of electricity to the grid, or enough to power 500 homes for seven hours.
Thom Gabrukiewicz • tgabrukiew@argusleader.com
Full Story: http://www.argusleader.com/article/2 ... 03/business 
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