CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Texas is quietly becoming a powerhouse in the world of battery energy storage and the Coastal Bend is now part of that surge. Massive fields of lithium batteries are rising from the dirt, designed to keep electricity flowing when demand spikes or renewable power drops off.
Just outside Sinton, next to the Steel Dynamics complex off Highway 188, the Pintail Pass Battery Energy Storage System is taking shape. It’s a sprawling, high-voltage site filled with rows of industrial-sized battery units. When it’s online, it will be large enough to power the entire city of Sinton for up to 48 hours. A project built to keep the Texas grid stable when the lights are most at risk of going out.
“When we go to blackout periods and the electric draw gets overloaded, they can pull that electricity out of those storage units and feed it back in,” said San Patricio County Judge David Krebs. “There’s quite a few of them now, and there may be more coming into the county.”…