TYNGSBORO, Mass., Nov. 9, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Beacon Power Corporation (Nasdaq:BCON), a leading provider of advanced energy storage systems and services to support a more stable, reliable and efficient electricity grid, has been notified by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) that the PTO will issue a fundamental smart grid patent to Beacon. The patent will be the underlying technology of the new Beacon Power SmartLink™ system, which the Company believes may be used in a broad range of existing and future distributed generation (DG) applications.
The patent describes "Methods and Systems for Intentionally Isolating Distributed Power Generation Sources." Beacon's invention applies to the use of energy storage of any kind, and automatically allows DG resources to continue operating when the main power grid fails. Currently, the majority of DG resources turn off automatically when the grid fails. In contrast, when the grid fails Beacon's invention immediately creates a DG-powered microgrid, stabilized by energy storage, which continues to operate without support from the primary grid.
"Inspiration for the Beacon Power SmartLink™ system came directly from the major northeast blackout of August 2003. People were surprised and businesses adversely affected when sites with DG were left without power, even though they had on-site generation," said Bill Capp, Beacon president and CEO. "We are pleased to have been granted broad claims for what could become an important source of revenue in addition to frequency regulation. We also expect this patent to lead to many more discussions with potential industry partners."
The Beacon Power SmartLink™ system may be useful whenever grid instability occurs during an outage or in support of a broad range of customer markets and applications. These include load reduction; standby power; peak shaving; net metering; residential solar; combined heat and power (CHP); grid support; premium power; island systems; and remote agricultural.
DG is considered a smart grid enabler because it places generation closer to the consumers of energy, or loads, allowing greater control, reliability, efficiency and self-reliance. Distributed generation systems can be grid-connected, grid-independent, hybrid systems, and microgrids, and may be found in the public sector, private industry, and military applications.
According to the U.S. PTO, Beacon's new patent is number 7,834,479. The original application can be found here: . The inventors are Bill Capp, Beacon Power president and CEO; Matt Lazarewicz, chief technical officer; and a former Beacon employee, Alex Rojas.
About Distributed Generation
Distributed generation (DG) is the use of power generation technologies located close to one or more loads being served. DG is becoming more common as alternative energy sources are used to generate electric power. In the U.S., the deregulation of electric utilities has influenced the development of independent energy sources that are tied to the utility grid. Typical DG sources include turbine generators, internal combustion engines/generators, micro-turbines, gas turbines, solar panels, wind turbines, and fuel cells. DG stakeholders include energy companies, equipment suppliers, regulators, energy users and others.
About Beacon Power Corporation
Beacon Power Corporation designs, develops and is commercializing advanced products and services to support stable, reliable and efficient electricity grid operation. Beacon's Smart Energy Matrix™, now in production, being operated and earning revenue, is a non-polluting, megawatt-scale, fast-response flywheel-based solution designed to provide less expensive, more sustainable and effective frequency regulation services to the nation's power grid. The Company's business strategy is both to supply frequency regulation services from its own plants and to sell systems directly to utilities or grid operators in parts of North America and selected international markets. Beacon is a publicly traded company with its research, development and manufacturing facility in the U.S. For more information, visit .
Safe Harbor Statements under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: The Material contained in this press release may include statements that are not historical facts and are considered "forward-looking" statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements reflect Beacon Power Corporation's current views about future events, financial performances, and project development. These "forward-looking" statements are identified by the use of terms and phrases such as "will," "believe," "expect," "plan," "anticipate," and similar expressions identifying forward-looking statements. Investors should not rely on forward-looking statements because they are subject to a variety of risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from Beacon's expectation. These factors include: a short operating history; a history of losses and anticipated continued losses from operations; the complexity and other challenges of arranging project financing and resources for one or more frequency regulation power plants, including uncertainty about whether we will be able to comply with the conditions or ongoing covenants of the Federal Financing Bank loan for our Stephentown, New York, facility; our need to comply with any disbursement or other conditions under the DOE Smart Grid grant program; a need to raise additional equity to fund Beacon's projects and its other operations in uncertain financial markets; conditions in target markets, including the fact that it has taken longer than anticipated for some ISOs to comply with FERC's requirement to update market rules to include new technology such as the Company's; our ability to obtain site interconnection approvals, landlord approvals, or other zoning and construction approvals in a timely manner; limited experience manufacturing commercial products or supplying frequency regulation services on a commercial basis; limited commercial contracts for revenues to date; the dependence of revenues on the achievement of product optimization, manufacturing and commercialization milestones; dependence on third-party suppliers; intense competition from companies with greater financial resources, especially from companies that are already in the frequency regulation market; possible government regulation that would impede the ability to market products or services or affect market size; possible product liability claims and the negative publicity which could result; any failure to protect intellectual property; retaining key executives and the possible need in the future to hire and retain key executives; the historical volatility of our stock price, as well as the volatility of the stock price of other companies in the energy sector, especially in view of current conditions in the financial markets generally. These factors are elaborated upon and other factors may be disclosed from time to time in Beacon Power filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Beacon Power expressly does not undertake any duty to update forward-looking statements.
CONTACT: Darrow Associates Chris Witty 646-438-9385 cwitty@darrowir.com