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The proposed power protection device will have an initial total capacity of 27.8 MW, company officials said. It will offer power protection for internal substation needs for one hour, including switchgear, lighting, communications and other needs.

The new lithium-ion solution will also offer advanced capabilities beyond the company's current lead acid solution, which backs up the switchgear for a short duration and does not provide back-up power for any other internal substation needs.

The contemplated UPS systems are intended to provide “near-instantaneous power back-up for FGC's substation equipment to enable a more reliable bulk power transmission system,” according to company officials.

In combination with Ener1's battery management system, the UPS systems will support FGC's “smart” grid, which will enable electric power production, transmission and consumption to be controlled and optimized in real time with a view toward ensuring maximum performance.  

Both companies had signed a $40-million energy storage supply contract in November 2010. The new agreement follows a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by both companies in March 2011. The agreement sets forth parameters of what is contemplated to be a five-year supply arrangement. 

The agreement will be effective after the companies agree upon specific conditions including the number of units to be supplied, unit pricing, services to be provided, completion of a feasibility study, board of director approval by both companies, and finalization of other technical specifications.

“We are planning to deploy 45 units over two years from western Russia to the country’s Far East,” said Oleg Bragin, general director, Mobile GTES, in a statement. “This is a genuinely innovative project that will bring the level of development of the Russian energy industry, as a whole, to a qualitatively new level.”

Charles Gassenheimer, Ener1 chairman and CEO, said the partnership will result in grid energy storage solutions that will offer a quick and highly cost-effective way to address some of the power quality challenges on the company's electric grid.

“With more than 800 substations being proposed to receive UPS system upgrades, we believe leveraging the advantages of advanced, lithium-ion batteries for grid energy storage could make smart business sense,” Gassenheimer added.

In other power protection news, Minuteman, a leader provider of power protection technologies, recently sat down with TMCnet to discuss why small to medium sized business (SMB) owners should not overlook the benefits afforded by the company.  

“According to an Office Depot survey of SMBs, 60 percent of this group does not have adequate power protection installed, nor do they have any type of disaster plan in place,” Minuteman’s Marketing Director Bill Allen told TMCnet in a recent interview. “This was a surprising statistic, since most SMBs are fully reliant on their telephone, IT and security systems.”