As more off-grid communities transition to renewable power, investing in batteries can help the grid stay balanced and efficient.

Kongiganak, known as “Kong” to the 700 or so people who live there, sits two miles from the shores of the Bering Sea, not far from the Kuskokwim River. Barges and planes bring in all supplies, from food to fuel, as they do in many fly-in communities in the Arctic. There are no roads or cars, and few homes in Kong have running water.

But Kongiganak is different from many other remote Alaska communities in one significant way: it is powered, for days or even weeks at a time, by wind turbines.

Between 25 and 40 percent of the village’s energy needs are met by five 95-kilowatt wind turbines, hooked up to electric car batteries.

And those batteries — representing only a fraction of equipment and maintenance costs — can be key to the entire operation. Read more at ArcticToday.