Alaska's power.

• Author: Mishler, Clark James
• Position: Power Assurance's battery business

Get a load of these high-energy protectors. They've always on watch, always dependable, always supportive. Their job is to protect the state's mission critical systems, and much more.

You have to love them. They light up your life. Rev your engines. Bring you music and energy and power.

But if you've never seen the 450-800 pound variety, you don't know what you're missing. They fill a room. They take your breath away.

They're a not-so-well-known lineage of batteries.

"We're not talking the kind of batteries you use at home, or in automobiles," said Russell Sell, account manager at Power Assurance, Inc. of Anchorage. "We're not talking batteries of that sort in any way, shape or form."

Sell is talking large, stationary battery systems made of wet lead acid-your calcium, antimony and selenium breeds; or your new-technological batteries, which include zinc flow or zinc bromide systems; and, of course, there's the old-reliable, the primary or secondary nickel cadmium (NICA) variety.

These batteries, with all their different blends of energizing toxins, are found attached to turbines to supply electrical power for utility companies, or at well pads/gathering facilities for oil and gas extraction, or on remote gate valves on Alyeska's pipelines. They are those used by defense agency deployments, or by the FAA for air traffic control facilities, or by financial institutions as power standbys for their main brains.

The kind of batteries created by Power Assurance.

Power Assurance was formed in 1991 and originally provided service to stationary batteries already operating in Alaska. Today, the company provides a variety of services including design, installation, maintenance/testing, deinstallation and reclamation of batteries. Statewide, the company services about 700 batteries for those in the telecommunications, utilities, resource extraction and military industries.

Each battery, or series of batteries, is attached to a battery charger and is "float charge active," meaning it is ready to receive a load should a common utility power fail. Many times, the battery is only there to implement a seamless transition between the original source and a generator.

"For example, if the utility power battery while the generator turns on," said Sell. "As soon as the generator ramps up, the battery is back charging, waiting for the next load. Absolutely any advent of telecommunications require stationary battery backup. Any long-distance service, all earth...