The next time a lightning bolt knocks out Churubusco’s electricity, a high-tech backup battery will supply power to nearby homes until service is restored.
A $2 million battery system became fully operational in the first quarter, said Marc Lewis, vice president of external relations for Indiana Michigan Power, which installed the system in the northeast Whitley County town late last year.
I&M’s parent company, American Electric Power, has installed other sodium-sulfur batteries in Bluffton, Ohio, and Milton, W.Va., and a prototype in Gahanna, Ohio, I&M spokesman Mike Brian said.
The company picked Churubusco because its electrical circuit could be isolated and connected to battery power during an outage, he said. AEP plans to add 1,000 megawatts of storage capacity, including batteries, to its electric grid by 2020.
The devices will make local electricity service more reliable, Brian said. The Churubusco battery could power the town’s northeast side and some central areas for about seven hours during an outage, he said.
Churubusco had an estimated 1,782 residents as of 2007, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The Churubusco battery system is about the size of a semitrailer and can store up to 2 megawatts of electricity at a time. One megawatt can power an estimated 700 to 800 homes, Brian said. The site is about 15 miles northwest of Fort Wayne.
Scientists are looking for ways to store electricity on a large scale, and these batteries could help address that need, Brian said. I&M can generate power to charge the batteries at night, when demand is low. Then the devices can supplement the power supply during the day, when electricity demand climbs.
The Churubusco battery is being tested to see whether it could store power generated by a wind turbine, Lewis said.
Installing the batteries will not increase residential electricity rates, which are set by the state, Brian said. But he said large-scale batteries could be used eventually to delay or limit power-plant construction projects, which do increase consumers’ bills. If electricity can be generated and stored at off-peak times, that could supplement the power generated to meet peak demand.
Fort Wayne-based I&M provides power to more than 580,000 customers in Indiana and Michigan.
