Posted by: JaredFurtado on Nov 3, 2011

By: Ucilia Wang

For nearly a month now, a cluster of 53-foot containers on a ridge of Laurel Mountain in West Virginia has been sipping power from wind turbines that stretch out in both directions.
The containers are home to the world’s largest lithium-ion battery farm for storing and sending energy to the electric grid, and the project reflects the emergence of a technology to help manage the growing production of renewable energy in the country.

AES Energy Storage designed the 32-megawatt project respond quickly to purchase requests by utilities to use short bursts of power at various times throughout the day to balance their supply and demand. The project serves the wholesale market operated by PJM Interconnection, which covers 13 states in eastern U.S.

AES announces the start of the energy storage project on Thursday, though it’s been serving the PJM grid since Sept. 30. The AES-owned storage system, which features lithium-ion batteries from A123 Systems, sits amid the 98-megawatt wind farm built by AES Wind Generation. Both AES Energy Storage and AES Wind Generation are part of the Arlington, Va.-based AES Corp.

The success of the Laurel Mountain project could play a critical role in convincing utilities that lithium-ion batteries are a good fit for grid energy storage. Although lithium-ion batteries are commonly found in consumer electronics such as laptops and iPhone, they are only beginning to show up in cars and as companions to a power plant.

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