City-Sized Battery Backup
[Guest post by DRJ]
The City of Presidio, Texas, is getting a city-sized battery backup to remedy its inconsistent electrical service. Apart from the better quality of life provided by reliable electricity, the battery is expected to help businesses lower costs because they won’t have to replace equipment damaged by surges, and has opened the door to new solar projects eager to take advantage of Presidio’s abundant sunlight.
People don’t need a lot to live comfortable lives, but one thing we all need is reliable power.
— DRJ
At a cost of only $6250 per resident at the projected cost, not counting keeping it running.
Sounds like a shovel ready project to me!
grog (fe332f) — 6/20/2010 @ 10:53 pmWhat happens the first time one of those batteries overheats, blows up, and catches fire? Sodium and Sulphur sounds like the makings of a pretty toxic smoke cloud to me.
Steven Den Beste (99cfa1) — 6/20/2010 @ 11:42 pmFor $25M they should have bought a Small Package Nuclear Plant with 25MW output, taken what they needed and sent the rest down the transmission line. They would have been rich!
Dusty (109a16) — 6/20/2010 @ 11:44 pmthe toxic cloud blows into Mexico: win/win!
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 6/20/2010 @ 11:46 pmAccording to Wikipedia, those batteries have to be kept at about 350C in order to operate. If the grid goes down, and the battery does its job and discharges, what keeps it hot? And how much energy on a day-to-day basis is required to keep it at that operating temperature? 350C is really bloody hot! (662F for us Americans)
Steven Den Beste (99cfa1) — 6/21/2010 @ 12:17 amSo this mini Bhopal, filled with 600 degree sulfur and sodium is UPHILL of the town?
Are these people under a court order to live out in the middle of nowhere, or do they freely choose? Hey, I think I’ll move to north of the Arctic circle and demand palm trees and a swing pool….
Paul (f1288f) — 6/21/2010 @ 3:23 amFor 25M they could put little windmills on each house.
Oh, I forgot. They need a reliable source of power.
MU789 (959170) — 6/21/2010 @ 5:42 amThis sounds like the Third World!
Patricia (160852) — 6/21/2010 @ 7:20 amSrre, a pocket nuke is a better idea. Of course, that would require federal permits which I suspect are unobtainable. A coal plant would have been easier.
Kevin Murphyr (5ae73e) — 6/21/2010 @ 8:14 amA coal plant would require a method of importing fuel, probably a railway line, from the nearest major rail junction. Plus, from what I know, most coal fired plant designs are better suited to continous generation rather than an “instant on” response to an outage.
If I were setting up a safe, clean response to this problem I would go with a gas fired gas turbine.
Have Blue (854a6e) — 6/21/2010 @ 9:25 am…housed in a plain-Jane cement building on a hilltop overlooking the city,…
Wouldn’t it be funny if at some point in the future some sort of act of nature were to destroy the building resulting in damage to the equipment inside?
Blacque Jacques Shellacque (1cf98e) — 6/21/2010 @ 10:00 amWhat they need is an uninterruptible power system or UPS.
In the 1980s, I was tasked with building a new over-the-horizon drone control system. The “drones” were actually remote controlled fighters – QF100, QF106 and the QF4. One day the General I worked for asked me what the most likely failure in the GRDCUS? (Gulf Range Drone Control Upgrade System).
My answer? “Gulf Power.”
If we had 4 pilotless F4 Phantom Jets each weighing 50,000 pound, losing electrical power would be a serious problem. We got some money and commandeered another building, which Exide filled with racks of batteries, some phase matching switching systems and a 480KW generator connected to a 3000 gallon diesel fuel tank.
When GRDCUS lost power, the batteries picked up the load within 1/60 of a second, started up the generator which was then phase matched and would carry the load until the tank was empty or power was restored.
I have a Kohler12KW generator at home. Installed, it cost me $10,000 in 2007. It has no battery backup, but the generator come up after a power loss of 10 seconds and shuts down 10 minutes after power is restored. It’s great.
This little town could have had something between the GRDCUS UPS and my system.
Arch (24f4f2) — 6/21/2010 @ 10:05 amArch – It sounded to me like they have a battery UPS here, just one based on an exotic an potentially dangerous battery type. Diesel generation would be an option but I am not up on what is currently available as to capacity and the fuel requirements.
Gas system with a storage tank to power the generator when it needs to run and a small pipeline to top off the tank during down time seems to be ideal.
Have Blue (854a6e) — 6/21/2010 @ 10:13 amFrom a cost effectiveness standpoint, they may need several small grids with local power generators. The US Army has many portable generators they use for both fixed base and mobile operations. It’s deployable worldwide and it’s highly reliable.
Sounds like someone just wanted to get a contract.
Arch (24f4f2) — 6/21/2010 @ 10:32 amWith the economy being bad there are a bunch of locomotives in long term storage around the country that could be had at a bargain. Why not truck some of those in?
BradnSA (980254) — 6/21/2010 @ 10:48 amI second Dusty @ #3.
AD - RtR/OS! (a2aeeb) — 6/21/2010 @ 11:16 amAccording to Wikipedia, those batteries have to be kept at about 350C in order to operate. If the grid goes down, and the battery does its job and discharges, what keeps it hot? And how much energy on a day-to-day basis is required to keep it at that operating temperature? 350C is really bloody hot! (662F for us Americans)
Comment by Steven Den Beste — 6/21/2010 @ 12:17 am
Ever been to Presidio this time of year? 662F is pretty much the average high temperature. My bigger question is whether or not the site is going to be high enough above the Rio Grande, since almost all the town flooded out 18 months ago when a dam on the Rio Concho in Mexico overflowed and sent a deluge of water into the RG at Presidio.
(Actually, everyone should experience Presidio at least once, since it is by far the most out-of-the-way place on the entire Texas-Mexico border — 60 miles south of the last main east-west highway, with the only other way out of town via the spectacular River Road to the Big Bend. Or into Ojinaga, which up until 20 years ago was only accessible via a small toll bridge you had to drive through a stockyard to access. They really do need the battery system because AEP’s power lines into town are prone to gets KOed by T-storms in the mountains between March and November.)
John (71f52f) — 6/21/2010 @ 1:07 pmCan anyone give an idea of what 60 miles of more reliable power lines would have cost? I know this is expensive but I wondered if 25 million would have covered it.
Having their own power generation makes sense but this seems like a lot of money for an 8 hour buffer that still depends on the unreliable lines. There is not much cost savings to offset the initial expense.
Machinist (497786) — 6/21/2010 @ 1:22 pmThe battery costs $25M and running a second line would have cost $40-50M. I’ve been to the area the lines would have to travel through. Here’s what it looks like.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 6/21/2010 @ 1:31 pmBy the way, here’s what Presidio looked like after a 2008 flood.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 6/21/2010 @ 1:33 pmOK, what disconnect could there be between the following two sentences from the above…?
———————————————————————————————–
and
———————————————————————————————–
WhatEVER could it be…
Hmmm… What? What?
==========================
P.S. Some questions that need be asked:
a) How much does this friggin’ thing cost?
IgotBupkis, President, United Anarchist Society (79d71d) — 6/21/2010 @ 1:56 pmb) How long will it last?
c) How much trouble will it be to dispose of when it’s no longer any good?
d) How much of it actually got paid for by the city and/or the util company, and how much got paid for by some Federal grant?
> A coal plant would have been easier.
Not under the Obama administration it wouldn’t have been…
IgotBupkis, President, United Anarchist Society (79d71d) — 6/21/2010 @ 2:02 pmThank you, DRJ.
I remember reading a cost estimate for highway of a million dollars a mile (some time ago) and wondered how power line compared. It seems they need local resources if they are to pay for it. Self generation would seem more secure and would allow surplus to be sold but I don’t have any idea what an adequate plant or plants would cost.
Any idea?
Machinist (497786) — 6/21/2010 @ 2:33 pmWhen I needed a generator for GRDCUS, I looked at some commercial systems and found them quite expensive, but the USN never throws anything away. Lots of conventionally powered ships have big generators. I think my 480kW unit came off a cruiser. They’re big but they’re free.
The Army is converting to new quiet generation systems which means there are serviceable units in the inventory. 100 80kW generators would power a town of 4000 easily.
Arch (24f4f2) — 6/21/2010 @ 3:07 pmI just hope they can keep the Burdette brothers away from it.
gwjd (032bef) — 6/21/2010 @ 6:04 pmThanks for posting on Presidio DRJ. That entire area feels like Hell in the summertime.
norma (4d2079) — 6/21/2010 @ 6:46 pm