上周四，AES位于西弗吉尼亚风电场的32MW储能项目开始运行，如何使储能系统与可再生能源发电的结合更加经济可行，将是这个项目的努力方向之一。
储能电池的加入，将使Laurel山风电场的61台风机的运行与传统电站更为相似，而不再是一个“间歇式”电力资源，只能在有风的时候才能发电。AES表示，这个储能电站是目前世界上同类型储能电站中规模最大的。
下一步计划：继续扩大该技术的规模。AES已经提出了一个位于田纳西的50MW储能项目，最近还提出了一个400MW的储能项目计划，帮助长岛电力局扩容。
-- Storing energy could make renewable power more viable
-- Battery facility would be largest of its kind in the world, company says
-- Facility tied to West Virginia wind farm
WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- AES Corp. (AES) Thursday opened a 32-megawatt energy storage project next to a West Virginia wind farm, part of a growing effort to attach batteries to renewable energy facilities in an effort to make them more economically viable.
The batteries will allow the 61-turbine Laurel Mountain wind farm to act more like a traditional power plant, rather than an "intermittent" source of power that can only produce electricity when the wind blows. AES said the storage facility is the largest of its kind in the world.
The project is just one step toward an even more important milestone for renewable power plants--the ability to store energy overnight and provide power 24 hours a day. The AES facility is not designed to have that kind of capacity. Instead, it will be able to store energy for shorter periods of time--15 minutes or so.
That is still important because the power grid needs to maintain an equal balance of supply and demand, and the wind farm will now be able to boost or cut back its output instantaneously to help maintain that balance. Grid operators, in this case PJM Interconnection, which serves a large swath of the northeast including Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Virginia, will pay extra for that service, known as "frequency regulation."
"It makes the whole idea of having renewable energy more attractive," said Colette Lamontagne, an associate director with Navigant Consulting.
"The Laurel Mountain storage facility is more than double the size of our previous projects, demonstrating our ability to scale up this advanced power resource," said Chris Shelton, president of AES's energy storage unit.
The next step: continue to scale up the technology. AES has proposed two 50-megawatt storage facilities in Texas. It also recently proposed a much larger storage project--400 megawatts--to help the Long Island Power Authority add capacity.