Energy Storage Technologies: How a Great Big Battery Helps a Little Texas Town Keep Its Lights (and Air Conditioners) On

What do you do when you live in a town where your only connection to the electric grid is a single 60-mile transmission line that's more than 60 years old and prone to repeated blackouts and power fluctuations? If you're the small, hot southwest Texas border town of Presidio, you get yourself a battery â€” a really, really big battery. To be specific, Presidio's battery is reportedly the country's largest grid-scale sodium-sulfur energy storage installation. Called BOB (Big Ol' Battery) by the locals, the 4 MW battery was built in Japan by NGK-Locke, Inc. and can provide eight hours of electricity at a stretch, and also can improve electricity quality and reduce voltage fluctuations. The battery and its substation are roughly the size of a house and cost about $25 million.

Quick Take: This is an opportunity to learn much more about how batteries like these will really fit into the Smart Grid energy storage picture. Systems like BOB have been operating in Japan for years, but they're still relatively new here in the U.S. as utility grid management tools.

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