United States Coast Guard hybrid system experience on Kodiak Island, Alaska

The United States Coast Guard has installed eight PV hybrid-powered search and rescue radio systems in the Kodiak, Alaska area of the USA. Each system is comprised of a wind turbine, a photovoltaic (PV) array, four gas-fired thermoelectric generators (TEGs), and two paralleled 800 Ah GNB Absolyte IIP 100A17 batteries. After 22 months of operation, the Marmot Island power system failed. Many months of excessive charging dried out the batteries and left two cells open-circuited. The resulting fire and failures of three components (the system controller, the wind turbine and the energy storage system) are characterized in this paper and suggestions are made to prevent similar incidents.