AEP Ohio Debuts First Lithium-Ion-Based Community Storage System in the World

AEP Ohio is taking the lead in testing a new energy backup system that will supply customers with electricity for a limited time during power outages. The company has begun the installation of the first Community Energy Storage (CES) system, designed to improve electrical reliability and better serve customers. This lithium-ion-based CES system is the first of its kind in the world to be installed at customer homes.

Media Clips:

WBNS New AEP Back Up Generator 9-19-11

WCMH Energy Storage System 9-14-11

WBNS Energy Storage System 9-15-11

The Columbus Dispatch 9-15-11

AEP Ohio installs a lithium-ion system that will provide some Gahanna customers with power during an outage

By  Dan Gearino

Thanks to a green metal box, power failures could become a rare occurrence for a cluster of houses in Gahanna.

The box, about the size of a small refrigerator, was lowered into place yesterday by American Electric Power workers, part of a test to see whether the lithium-ion batteries that are housed in it — and boxes like it — can be used as a backup for traditional electricity sources.

Glenn Allen, 57, watched from his driveway. He works from home as a technical writer, a job that makes him sensitive to the power interruptions that the battery is supposed to help prevent.

“If there is a power outage during the daytime, that puts me out of operation,” he said.

AEP is installing 80 of the boxes in and around Gahanna. This is part of the utility’s gridSMART initiative, a $150 million project that gets about half of its money from the U.S. Department of Energy, that is scheduled to continue until 2013.

Each box serves two to five houses, providing enough electricity for two to three hours of use, the company said. When the power goes out, the battery is designed to seamlessly fill the gap. Ideally, the customer wouldn’t notice what had happened.

When the power is out for more than three hours, customers still will need to reach for their flashlights.

Each box and its components cost about $75,000. That price tag makes the system too expensive to be used on a large scale, but utilities such as AEP expect the price to drop over the next few years. If that happens, such boxes could be considered for use on a larger scale.

Emeka Okafor, one of AEP’s project leaders, looks forward to the moment he can begin to see data on how the battery is being used.

AEP is describing the test as the first of its type to be done with real customers in an uncontrolled setting, which makes it exciting to employees such as Okafor.

“To have something where you can say you’re first in the world is really a lot of fun,” he said.

AEP has faced criticism for the frequency and duration of its power failures.

Last year, an average customer of AEP’s Columbus Southern Power operating company had 1.21 outages of at least five minutes, which was the most of any investor-owned utility in the state. The average interruption lasted 123 minutes, which was second-longest in the state, behind AEP’s Ohio Power operating company. The figures do not include interruptions related to major storms.

The utility has met state standards for reliability, though critics have said the standards are not strict enough. In recent years, AEP has increased its spending on tree-trimming and other tasks that can help reduce outages.

Backup power is one way to make electricity more reliable, but it would take a much-larger investment for the technology to make a dent in power-failure statistics.

Initially, the boxes are being installed in areas with underground power lines. Most of the time, the units will be placed next to another green metal box, the transformer that directs electricity from the lines to individual customers.

Customers will pay for electricity from the battery at the moment it comes into their homes. AEP is working on ways to allocate power among the homes served by each box, one of many technical issues yet to be resolved.

While customers like the promise of reliable electricity, environmentalists see the batteries as a tool to deal with some of the challenges presented by renewable energy. The electricity from wind turbines and photovoltaic panels needs to be used almost immediately, even if those power sources may not really be needed at the time.

Batteries, if deployed on a large scale, provide a place for the power to be stored, said Samir Succar, staff scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group that is not affiliated with the AEP project.

“In kind of a broad-brush sense, I would describe energy storage as the addition of flexibility to the energy system,” he said.

He credits AEP with being at the forefront of using batteries in this way. He sees the central Ohio test as an essential step toward showing the potential of the technology.

“They were out in front,” he said.

dgearino@dispatch.com

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/business/2011/09/15/battery-backup.html

The Energy Collective 10-4-2011

Community Energy Storage Leads the Way to Electricity Storage on the Grid

Posted by James Greenberger

This summer American Electric Power (AEP) became the first electric utility in the nation to deploy a community energy storage (CES) system in its service territory.  AEP’s CES system consists of 80 25 kW units, which were installed in a residential neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio.  NAATBatt member firms S&C Electric and International Battery supplied the storage units and the lithium-ion batteries that the first units contain.

The launch of the first CES system is a watershed in the history of grid-connected electricity storage in the United States.  Although the U.S. Department of Energy and electric utilities nationwide continue to investigate different ways to store electricity on the grid, many industry experts are coming to the view that CES will be the “killer app” in grid-connected energy storage.

The attractiveness of CES systems does not lie in their cost.  On a pure cost per kilowatt basis, it is cheaper to store electricity in bulk, using pumped hydro storage, compressed air systems or multi-megawatt flow batteries, than in hundreds of small 25-100 kV units installed in basements or buried in residential neighborhoods around the country.

But cost per kilowatt is not a valid basis for evaluating storage systems.  Storage is not an objective itself; it is a means to an end.  Storage serves the same end as all other grid infrastructure:  providing safe, reliable electric power to consumers at the lowest possible cost.  Judged by this metric, CES systems may have a leg up on their nominally cheaper storage and peak generation technology competitors.

The advantage of CES systems lies in their ability to provide multiple benefits to electricity customers and to the utilities that serve them.  Because CES systems are located immediately proximate to the ultimate customer, they can provide back-up power, level peak loads and reduce the strain on, and necessary investment in, the complicated and often unsightly infrastructure needed to distribute centralized electric power.  CES systems can facilitate the deployment and rational net metering of distributed solar and wind electricity generation and support the recharging of electric vehicles on demand.  In addition, hundreds of CES units can be networked by utility operators to provide the same sort of transmission support and leveling of variable renewable energy generators that larger storage facilities and peak generators can provide.

The small size and low individual cost of CES units is also an advantage.  Individual units are relatively inexpensive and can be deployed by ordinary utility work crews.  Their deployment does not require complicated permits, environmental impact statements or dedicated maintenance resources.  Bulk storage units and peak generators can take years to permit and deploy; CES units can be deployed as part of a utility’s ordinary capital improvement program.

The greatest advantage of CES systems, however, may be that their ability to provide back-up power is a benefit that can easily be explained to, and appreciated by, ordinary electricity customers.  Ordinary consumers suffer tens of millions of dollars of damages each year due to power outages.  Those who cannot afford or cannot deploy costly private back-up generators suffer disproportionately.

At the time the grid was designed, the impact of outages was generally shared and grudgingly accepted.  There was no feasible technological fix.  Today, however, there is, in the form of CES systems.  Grid-connected energy storage will become a reality in the United States when consumers start demanding from their utilities and PUC’s the type of electricity reliability that 21st Century CES systems can provide.  When they do, CES systems will lead the way in deploying energy storage technology on the grid.

http://theenergycollective.com/jim-greenberger/66432/community-energy-storage-leads-way-electricity-storage-grid