Flywheel

By: Matthew Hoff For power providers, grid stabilization has been a rising concern in recent years, especially because of the increasing use of intermittent energy sources such as wind turbines. Maintaining a stabilized energy grid is difficult because of the unpredictability of these intermittent energy sources. If wind turbines, for example, are supplying 5% of the overall power for the electric grid and the turbines stop moving because the air grows still, the grid has to find a way to kick into overdrive to compensate for this sudden decrease in energy. It's not as easy as it sounds....

Beacon Power Corp (BCON) was up over 147% at the close today. This move was primarily based on two project wins. One with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and the other with the California Energy Commission. The projects would have Beacon Power provide grid frequency regulation and reactive power by utilizing its flywheel energy storage system. The final terms and conditions of the projects have not been disclosed.

Active Power Inc (ACPW) announced the details behind its latest breakthrough in alternative energy storage. The new technology, based upon the innovative combination of several mature technologies, constitutes a monumental achievement in energy storage by providing the extended runtimes of lead-acid batteries without any of the well-known shortcomings of these cells. This Thermal and Compressed Air Storage (TACAS) technology will be incorporated into Active Power's newest product that will begin shipping as an alpha unit late this year, the CleanSource® XR.

Beacon Power Corp (BCON) reported revenue of $304,064, compared to revenue of $80,902 in the third quarter of 2004, an increase of $223,162, or 276%. Revenues for the nine months ending September 30, 2005, were $1,258,503, compared to $264,793 for the same period in 2004, an increase of $993,710, or 375%. Beacon Power reported a net loss of $2.1 million, or ($0.04) per share, compared to a net loss of $1.9 million or ($0.04) per share for the third quarter of 2005 and 2004, respectively, representing an increase of approximately $0.2 million or 16%. They ended the...

John Petersen Last month Lux Research released a bottom-up evaluation of the cost effectiveness of eight energy storage technologies in six grid-scale applications throughout 44 countries, including all 50 U.S. states. Their report titled "Grid Storage under the Microscope: Using Local Knowledge to Forecast Global Demand" predicts that annual global demand for grid-scale energy storage will reach an astounding 185.4 gigawatt-hours (GWh) by 2017 and represent a $113.5 billion incremental revenue opportunity for an industry that currently generates sales of $50 to $60 billion a year. In the grid-scale sector alone, Lux predicts an average...

Beacon Power Corp (BCON) announced that on March 2, 2005, it received a letter from The NASDAQ Stock Market stating that because the closing bid price of the Beacon's common stock has been at $1.00 per share or greater for at least 10 consecutive business days, Beacon has regained compliance with Marketplace Rule 4310(c)(4). This is wonderful news for BCON.

SatCon Technology Corporation (SATC) announced that it has received a follow-on purchase order for a second 2200 kVA Rotary Uninterruptible Power Supply (RUPS) on a government contract valued in excess of $1.1 million. SatCon's StarSine(TM) Rotary UPS is designed to provide both high quality electrical power during normal operation, as well as prevent any interruption of electricity to critical manufacturing processes, telecommunication centers, data centers, and healthcare facilities in the event of power grid failures such as black-outs and brown-outs. The RUPS is connected directly to SatCon's patented flywheel for short duration power disturbances and is integrated...

It’s official! Cleantech, the sixth industrial revolution, has arrived on time and in the midst of extraordinary crisis. Like every good revolution, blood is flowing in the streets; the guillotine is en route to Wall Street and the mob is so busy plotting retribution for the excesses of the past that most have no time to consider the future. But as yesterday’s dynasties decay, crumble and fall, a new generation of visionaries is already building on the wreckage of the past. These are indeed troubled times that bear an eerie resemblance to the opening sentence from A Tale of...

The market for grid frequency regulation services open to new service providers in the United States in 2004 was valued at nearly $360 million - and is expected to increase in 2005 - according to a Technology Brief issued today by Ardour Capital Investments, LLC. Frequency regulation is the target market for Beacon Power Corp (BCON) Smart Energy Matrix flywheel energy storage system, two demonstration systems of which are being built under contract to the California Energy Commission (CEC) and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). The Technology Brief is available online at www.ardourcapital.com, under...

Two diametrically-opposed stories for this post: Beacon Power and RailPower Tech . The latter is up 134% on its week-ago closing price, while the former is down nearly 22% over the same period. Beacon Power Corp I wrote about Beacon Power a little while ago. The recent drop in share price is due in large part to the fact that Beacon announced, last Friday (Dec. 29), a glitch at one of its testing facilities in Massachusetts. This was followed by an analyst at Merriman Curhan Ford downgrading the company from Buy to Hold. Almost immediately, the...

John Petersen With only a couple trading days left in 2009, this is as good a time as any for a performance review. The predictions I made at this time last year were pretty solid with an 80% accuracy rate on price direction. For the year, a $1,000 investment in each of my green star companies would have yielded a portfolio appreciation of 67%, which handily beat the broader market indices. That being said, my star and caution ratings were a good deal less prescient because I seriously underestimated the potential of both Maxwell Technologies (MXWL) and Active...

America’s electric power grid is subject to immense inefficiencies that arise from the interplay between centralized power generation, local power consumption and on demand utility service. To put things into a broad perspective, the nameplate capacity of U.S. generating facilities is about 1 million Megawatts (MW), so if all of our power plants ran 24/7 we would have a theoretical annual generating capacity of 8.7 billion Megawatt-hours (MWh). Since demand for electricity fluctuates on both a daily and seasonal basis, total electric power generation in 2007 was only 4.2 billion MWh, or less than 50% of nameplate...

7.17.09 Storage Week John Petersen Infocast’s Storage Week was all I had hoped it would be, and more. While I thoroughly enjoyed serving on three discussion panels and was warmly received by roughly 250 attendees, including executives of companies that I've occasionally criticized, the most important value for me came from the opportunity to hear four days of high-level presentations by industry executives, national thought leaders and policymakers who repeatedly stressed that: From a utility perspective grid-based energy storage is the functional equivalent of an instantly...

Electricity storage stocks are publicly traded companies whose business involves the storage of electricity.  They include battery stocks and hydrogen stocks (see links), while companies involved in other storage technologies such as pumped hydro energy storage, Compressed Air Energy Storage, capacitors, flywheels, and thermal storage are listed here. This list was last updated on 3/22/2022. Dais Analytic Corp. (DLYT) Dresser-Rand Group (DRC) Fluence Energy, Inc. (FLNC) Graftech International (GTI) Highpower International (HPJ) Kemet Corp. (KEM) Maxwell Technologies Inc (MXWL) If you know of any energy storage stock that is not listed here and should be, please let us know by leaving a comment. Also for stocks in the...

John Petersen Tom Lehrer is frequently credited with a quip that perfectly summarizes my feeling about the financial markets in the third quarter, "Apart from that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?" During the quarter we were given box seats to classic political opera in two acts. Act One was set in Washington DC while Act Two moved to Europe so we could hear the same tortured songs of woe in a different language. We all know the opera has to end with the immensely popular "Kick the Can Chorus," but we suspended disbelief, bought into...

Tom Konrad CFA How material is the failure of one of Beacon Power's (BCON) flywheels on July 27?<a href="http://www.altenergystocks.com/comm/content/beacon-power-corporation/" beacon="" power's="" (bcon) Last week, I published an article Four Clean Energy Value Stocks I'm Buying Now, including Beacon Power as one of the four.  My rationale for including Beacon was: Beacon has been operating their first commercial scale 20MW flywheel energy storage plant  since early this year without mishap, achieving full capacity in June.  They are set to begin construction of their second 20MW plant later this year, 54% of...