by Todd Woody.

Photo from thusagricola.wordpress.com

They like to do things big in Texas, so it’s no surprise that
the Lone Star state will launch the world’s largest wind battery storage
project.

Duke Energy is not a Texas company, but it owns the aptly
named Notrees wind farm in the Texas panhandle. The North Carolina power giant
is teaming up with an Austin area startup called Xtreme Power to install a 36-megawatt
battery at the 153-megawatt Notrees Windpower Project near Kermit, Texas.

That’s one big battery. Such technology is likely to become
crucial as wind farms become ever larger but erratic suppliers of electricity
to the grid. In wind-blown West Texas, the region’s massive turbine farms can
generate more electricity than the grid can handle at some times while all but
ceasing production at other times. That creates headaches for grid operators,
and the ability to store wind energy and release it when needed would help
smooth out the ebbs and flows of the electricity stream.

“This system will store excess wind energy and discharge it
whenever demand for electricity is highest—not just when wind turbine blades
are turning. In addition to increasing the supply of renewable energy during
periods of peak demand,” Duke said in a statement.

Pacific Northwest grid operators will probably be watching
the experiment closely. That region boasts abundant hydropower and huge wind
farms, which has created
situations when there’s a surplus of both wind and water power and insufficient
capacity on transmission lines to offload the electricity. Batteries would
help, though it probably would take huge banks of them to have a significant impact.

The federal government is obviously interested in the
technology. The Department of Energy has thrown in $22 million for the project,
with Duke matching the grant with another $22 million.

Duke and Xtreme plan to plug in the battery by late 2012.