Urban Electric Power installs 1MWh of alkaline batteries as backup in data centre
Urban Electric Power has replaced 1,000kWh of lead-acid batteries at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) with an energy storage system comprised of its rechargeable alkaline battery technology.
The SDSC hosts the research computing loads for the University of California San Diego and has been an international leader in high-performance and data-intensive computing since its founding in 1985. The massive computer clusters and petabytes of storage it uses will now get their backup power from rechargeable alkaline batteries in the new energy storage system.
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Urban Electric Power’s batteries uses zinc manganese-dioxide cells and the company has a patented method of making them rechargeable for 10 years or more.
There are 5,200 individual alkaline cells in SDSC’s initial installation, which store a total of 1MWh electricity. An additional 5,200 cells are on the way for a phase 2 installation in summer. The lead-acid batteries removed are now being recycled.
Invinity Energy Systems Receives Certification to Multiple Major ISO Standards
Vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) company Invinity Energy Systems has been certified as compliant with three different International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards follow an audit by global assurance provider SAI-Global.
The company claims it is the only flow battery manufacturer worldwide to hold all three standards concurrently. They are the standards for:
- Quality Management ISO 9001
- Environmental Management ISO 14001
- Health & Safety Management ISO 45001
ISO 9001 sets out the criteria for an organisation’s quality management system (QMS). The second, ISO 14001, defines an Environmental Management System (EMS) as a systematic framework to ensure the measurement, management and minimisation of an organisation’s immediate and long-term environmental impacts.
ISO 45001, meanwhle, is the world’s international standard for occupational health and safety and is implemented alongside regional, national and industry-specific rules regarding workplace safety.
Invinity said that compliance with the three standards will accelerate its commercial development and growth in the energy storage market.
Exelon: historically strong grid reliability in 2021
Exelon, the largest utility in the US, said its customers experienced a year of historically strong electric service reliability as a result of investments in grid resiliency and highlighted the important future role of batteries.
The Fortune 100 company said the performance runs counter to the trend of decreasing reliability identified in a recent Associated Press study. Its targeted investments to make the electric grid more resilient to powerful storms includes battery energy storage.
It said the Beach Haven Battery Storage Project launched by its subsidiary Atlantic City Electric (ACE), which operates in New Jersey, will ease the strain of peak demand and provide backup power when it enters commercial operation in 2023. ACE customers experienced the lowest frequency of electric outages ever in 2021 and the frequency of outages has improved by 60% over the last 10 years.
Its five other utility subsidiaries also experienced record low levels of interruptions, record restoration times and lowest frequency of outages depending on the utility.
