The Kauai Island Utility Cooperative has hired a Texas-based energy storage company to provide a battery backup system for the utility’s 12-megawatt solar power project being built near Koloa.

The 2-megawatt battery system developed by Xtreme Power will be used to help smooth out energy fluctuations from the solar project before the power is fed into the KIUC grid. It is the eighth battery system that Xtreme Power has deployed in Hawaii in connection with a renewable energy project.

One of the battery systems, located at First Wind’s wind energy project in Kahuku, was destroyed in a 2012 fire and was replaced with a device that uses a different type of technology to address power fluctuations.

Xtreme Power’s battery systems are also used at other solar projects on Kauai and Lanai, and wind projects on Oahu and Maui.

The KIUC Koloa project is scheduled to be operational by May 2014.