Arizona Public Service has begun a two-year evaluation of a power-storage device that can accumulate 1.5 megawatt-hours of energy for use in the grid when customers need it most, the company says.
The storage system, APS said in its announcement, is the size of a shipping container and can generate the equivalent power output of 1,200 hybrid cars or 300,000 cell phone batteries.
"We plan to study a number of things, including how we can decrease equipment stress on high demand days and how we can provide solar energy to our customers after sundown," says APS Director of Energy Innovation Barbara Lockwood. "This pilot has great potential to change some of the ways we deliver electricity in the future.
The utility says it will try out the giant battery, developed by Electrovaya Inc., a lithium-ion battery manufacturing company, in two modes. First, it will reside in an electrical distribution substation. Later, the system will be trucked a few miles up the road to support a neighborhood-scale solar power plant, APS said.
