Chicago: S&C Electric Company, a smart grid and energy storage integration company, announced February 18 that its PureWave® SMS Storage Management System in Field, British Columbia, had synchronized to the grid. The system, owned by BC Hydro, integrates a 1-MW sodium-sulphur battery bank with the power grid. The storage system can provide up to seven hours of clean back-up power during power outages. The system also provides peak shaving on a daily basis.
Field is a remote mountain community that relies on a single 55-km overhead distribution line to deliver power from the substation in Golden, B.C. to the town. In this mountainous terrain, heavy forestation, difficult access, and adverse climate conditions result in frequent faults affecting reliability. The energy storage system alleviates this problem by automatically transferring Field’s electric load to battery power when the grid is disrupted.
“The energy storage system provides a clean source of back-up power for Field, greatly improving power reliability while reducing the environmental impact of other back-up power supply options like diesel generators,” says Dan Girard, Director, Business Development—Renewable Energy and Energy Storage, S&C.
The system is already providing benefits for Field residents since it went into service in July 2013, the company says. In the first six months of system operation, six major power disruptions occurred, stemming from incidents including motor vehicle accidents, trees falling on the lines, and broken power line poles. Each time S&C’s system kicked in immediately to avoid an outage, supplying Field with battery power for a total of 40 hours. In fact, during the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the energy storage facility in September, a line fault occurred when a motor vehicle accident caused a power pole to break. S&C’s energy storage solution quickly demonstrated its value by islanding the town for eight hours until repairs could be made and grid power was restored.
The energy storage project is the first of its kind in Canada. It stores clean energy produced by BC Hydro to meet the area’s electricity demands while also reducing system load during periods of peak demand. The $13 million project was made possible with a $6.5 million grant from Natural Resources Canada’s Clean Energy Fund.