Energy storage applications for large scale power protection systems

Critical process industries like semiconductor fabrication have spent billions on industrial automation hardware to improve product quality and increase productivity. This, coupled with plant expansions into countries where the utility power grid is taxed by rapid expansion, has created growing concern over the impact of a utility power problem that affects the "at risk" or "in-process" value of the business. In many critical process industrial businesses, there is a belief that utility power providers have not kept pace with the supply of quality power. In fact, most utilities have spent millions of dollars to improve the quality of their supply. Today's sophisticated electrical loads require that the utility service be customized to provide an electrical power source matched to the needs of the load. For critical load businesses, the mitigation of utility power problems is a "site-by-site" decision. The characteristics of the utility distribution system, geographic location and weather conditions dictate the appropriate solution. This paper addresses advances in power electronics that have made energy storage options available to large load (greater than 2 MW) users to improve power quality and reliability.