The small West Texas town of Presidio, one of the oldest towns in the United States, receives its electricity via an old 100 kilometre transmission line that is prone to failure due to storms. The condition of the line is such that even during good weather, fluctuations in power supply interfere with electrical appliances.
To combat the issue, Electric Transmission Texas, LLC (ETT) recently completed the installation of a s 4-megawatt NAS battery system to help smooth out the power fluctuations. This is no ordinary battery system; it consists of eighty modules weighing in excess of 3.5 tonnes each and twenty four trucks were needed to transport the batteries.
The battery system will address voltage fluctuations and momentary outages and in the event of longer outages, the system can supply four megawatts of uninterrupted power for up to eight hours.
NAS battery systems can also help address renewable energy storage issues, offsetting intermittency of wind and solar power by use of sophisticated control of charge and discharge cycles. By connecting many batteries, systems even larger than the Presidio installation can be achieved. NAS batteries are also much smaller than their lead acid counterparts, required approximately one third of the installation area. NAS batteries also have a far longer serviceable life – around 15 years. The NAS battery was originally jointly developed by NGK and the Tokyo Electrical Power Company
