Beacon Power Corporation (Nasdaq: BCON), a company that designs and develops advanced products and services to support more stable, reliable and efficient electricity grid operation, announced that it has completed the connection of a second megawatt (MW) of flywheel energy storage to the New England power grid. This new system, which is already producing revenue by providing frequency regulation services, doubles the energy storage capacity now in operation at Beacon’s Tyngsboro, Massachusetts, headquarters.
“This resource expansion reflects continued progress in our drive to commercialize fast-response flywheel energy storage for frequency regulation,” said Bill Capp, Beacon president and CEO. “Both our first one-megawatt system and this new, second megawatt are being controlled by ISO New England. The second system is operating on a separate, higher-voltage power line than the first and uses a different interconnection, transformer and meter, which has enabled us to gain experience with multiple connection arrangements. We also incorporated several design improvements in the second system, based on things we learned from the first. Those performance-enhancing improvements are now being applied to all our production plants.”
Beacon’s first 1 MW Smart Energy Matrix flywheel system has been absorbing and injecting (i.e., recycling) electricity to provide frequency regulation services on the ISO New England grid since November 2008. In the second quarter of this year, the Company realized significantly lower operating costs for this system, when ISO New England and the local utility, National Grid, changed how National Grid charges Beacon for electricity. The second MW system will also benefit from this cost reduction.
Beacon expects to have up to 5 MW of flywheel energy storage capacity installed by year-end. The Company projects that the systems running at its Tyngsboro headquarters will generate positive gross margins from the provision of frequency regulation services.
via Beacon Power Connects Second Megawatt of Regulation Service.
