Energy intensive electrochemical storage in Italy: 34.8 MW sodium-sulphur secondary cells

In this paper a part of the researches which have been carried out to verify the feasibility of the sodium-sulphur (Na-S) secondary cell installations in the Italian high voltage network is presented. The three installations are located in South Italy and have a total power of 34.8 MW. Their function in the grid is charging and discharging in long time intervals so that they have been called "energy intensive" installations. More in detail, the battery environmental and prescriptive compatibility with the Italian grid has been assessed and is here presented by means of a risk assessment which is absent in technical literature. Safety tests performed by NGK on the new Italian battery module are shown. Moreover, novel safety features used in Italian cell, module and unit are thoroughly presented in the paper.