Battery manufacturer Saft was selected by Northwest Territories Power Corp. in Canada to develop and install an extreme temperature battery energy storage system (BESS) for use as part of a hybrid solar-diesel microgrid that will deliver power to a community located 50 miles north of the Arctic Circle.
Ontario-based Green Sun Rising was selected for the 81 kW solar power generation portion of the project. The system will be installed at the Colville Lake Power Station in June and will provide Colville Lake, Northwest Territories, residents with consistent, renewable solar power and reduced diesel fuel consumption.
Colville Lake is a remote, small community of about 150 inhabitants with temperatures that can drop to -50°C in winter and reach 35°C in summer. Currently, the community experiences a high incidence of power outages.
The community can only be reached by road during a six-week period in February through March, when northern ice roads are in use. Otherwise, it is accessed by flights. As such, the system was completed within a strict time frame and delivered to Edmonton, where it is awaiting the final trek across the ice roads when they are reopened.
Saft's ‘cold temperature package’ can be deployed in a standard 20-foot shipping container. As part of the contract, Saft will develop and install one Intensium Max 20M lithium-ion battery container with 232 kWh of energy and a 200 kW power conditioning system from ABB.
The BESS will serve as the heart of the hybrid microgrid that is part of a larger solar and diesel upgrade to the existing power plant.
For more information on how solar, storage and fossil sources can be integrated into effective microgrids, visit the Hybrid Energy Innovations event site, here.
