Dive Summary:

• Four co-ops in Minnesota will be partnering to run a trial on home batteries to see if they can store and release renewable energy onto the grid during peak demand and provide backup power to homes and businesses in the event of an outage.
• The residential battery storage units are about the size of a college dorm refrigerator and have an 11-23 kilowatt-hour capacity; the units are scheduled for September installation in the test homes.
• The test, which is part of a national $68 million smart grid demonstration from the Department of Energy and National Rural Electric Cooperative Association’s Cooperative Research Network, hopes that the batteries will store enough wind or solar generation to keep homes powered and off the grid during times of high demand.

From the article:

While you won’t be able to buy a home energy battery at Home Depot any time soon, you might someday, say industry experts. But at a price tag as high as $13,000, the batteries, which use smart grid technology, are way out of range for most consumers.

Also while the batteries’ energy storage potential “is viewed by many as a possible solution to the intermittency of wind,” said Doug Danley, a contractor to NRECA’s Cooperative Research Network, the technology is still largely untested. ...