Another First for Nickel
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THE MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO NICKEL AND ITS APPLICATIONS |
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THESE THIRTEEN THOUSAND nickel-containing batteries deliver sufficient power to prefvent electrical
outages in Alaska.
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By Dr. Gerry Crawford
Nickel Magazine, July 2004 --Nickel has scored another first, this time in the world's most powerful battery energy storage system, or BESS, situated in Alaska, U.S.A. (and soon to be enshrined in the Guinness Book of World Records).
An estimated 90 tonnes of nickel are used as nickel oxyhydroxide (NiOOH) in 13,760 Saft nickel-cadmium batteries arrayed in an enormous (40-by-160-metre), single-storey building near the city of Fairbanks. To protect the batteries against the minus 50°C winters common to Alaska, the temperature in the building is maintained at 21°C year-round.
The US$30-million, turnkey BESS installation can deliver 27 Megawatts (MW) of power for 15 minutes, or 40 MW for seven minutes, thereby preventing or minimizing any power outages that might occur in the Alaskan grid. Between autumn 2003, when it started, and March 31, 2004, BESS delivered 15 discharges and saved an estimated 62,400 customer disconnections.
BESS was designed and built for the Golden Valley Electricity Association by a consortium consisting of Asea Brown Boveri (ABB) and Saft, the France-based battery manufacturer. ABB Switzerland supplied the DC/AC converter and controls, Saft Sweden, the nickel-cadmium batteries, and ABB U.S., the project management, construction, and ancillary systems.
Each Saft battery, or cell, weighs 72 kilograms (kg) and deliver 920 ampere-hours at 1.2 volts. The cells are arrayed in modules of 10 cells in series, delivering 2,000 amps at 10-12 volts. A "string" of 344 modules in series delivers up to13.3 MW at almost 4,000 amps and 3,440 volts. The plant consists of four strings in parallel but could be expanded to eight. Maximum delivery to date is 34.6 MW, though the plant has been tested at up to 46 MW for five minutes.
The converter system switches up to 5 kilovolts (kV) DC to AC, which is then bumped up in a sub-station to transmission-line voltage of 138 kV.
In addition to benefiting Alaskans, the BESS system shows that such power storage installations can operate to the benefit of any community. They provide emergency power for the brief periods necessary to allow diesel or other auxiliary power-generating facilities to come on-line, thereby preventing outages.
That nickel plays an important role in this energy storage system indicates a significant potential new
market for this enviro-metal.
Dr. Crawford is a Toronto-based consultant to the Nickel Institute.
PHOTOS: Golden Valley Electricity
Jim McDowall |
