Tyngsboro, MA and Anchorage, AL: Beacon Power, manufacturer of grid-scale flywheel energy storage systems, announced May 26 that it has entered into an agreement with Chugach Electric Association to supply flywheels for an innovative hybrid energy storage project in Anchorage, Alaska.
The project will combine proven and durable high-power flywheel energy storage technology from Beacon Power, with an existing lower duty-cycle conventional electrochemical battery for use during periods when additional energy is needed. The hybrid energy storage resource combines the benefits of fast-responding flywheels with longer-duration batteries to help manage and stabilize variable output from renewable energy sources. The systems will be installed at a substation next to Chugach headquarters and are expected to go into operation later in 2015.
Beacon and Chugach will test the 320 kW system to determine if the new storage solution can be scaled up in the future to enable increasing amounts of renewables to interconnect with remote system utilities along the Alaska Railbelt. Alaska’s Railbelt region, named for areas reached by rail, stretches north from the Kenai Peninsula more than 500 miles to Fairbanks and is home to 70 percent of Alaska’s population.
Beacon is also collaborating on this project with Spirae LLC of Fort Collins, Colorado, which is providing the overall control system to manage output of both flywheels and batteries, as well as manage each system’s state-of-charge. Spirae will utilize their proven Wave™ control architecture and hardware developed for demanding microgrid applications.