TYNGSBORO, Mass., June 21, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Beacon Power Corporation (Nasdaq:BCON), a leading provider of advanced products and services to support a more stable, reliable and efficient electricity grid, announced that the Company's first flywheel energy storage plant in Stephentown, New York, has achieved its full 20-megawatt (MW) capacity. The plant, which is the largest advanced energy storage facility now operating in North America, utilizes 200 high-speed Beacon flywheels to provide fast-response frequency regulation services to the New York electricity grid. A formal inauguration ceremony will be held on July 12th.
"We're very proud to have reached this technical and commercial milestone in building and operating the first grid-scale flywheel-based storage plant in the world," said Bill Capp, Beacon Power president and CEO. "We look forward to celebrating this achievement next month with the federal, state and local organizations and individuals that helped make the project possible."
"New York's competitive marketplace for electricity provides fertile ground for energy innovations such as Beacon Power's flywheel system. It's great to see pioneering technology bringing new solutions to meet New York's energy needs," said Stephen G. Whitley, president and CEO of the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO).
"It is great news that Beacon Power's new flywheel energy storage plant has reached full capacity," said Francis J. Murray Jr., president and CEO, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). "NYSERDA has supported this Stephentown plant in our ongoing effort to encourage the use of new technology to improve the reliability of the grid and reduce CO2 emissions. We are proud to partner with Beacon Power."
"We're pleased to be in the New York electricity market selling a full 20 MW of fast and accurate regulation service to the NYISO grid," said Judith Judson, Beacon Power vice president of asset management and market development. "Our Stephentown project is under budget and performing extremely well, proving that Beacon's flywheel technology can deliver an essential grid reliability service while reducing the need for fossil fuel-based regulation resources and cutting greenhouse gas emissions."
About Beacon Power
Beacon Power Corporation designs, develops and commercializes advanced products and services to support stable, reliable and efficient electricity grid operation. The Company's primary business strategy is to build merchant plants and sell turnkey regulation facilities to meet both domestic and international grid requirements using its patented flywheel energy storage technology. Beacon's Smart Energy Matrix, which is now in production, operating and earning revenue, is a non-polluting, megawatt-level, utility-grade flywheel-based solution to provide sustainable frequency regulation services. 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 our other operations in uncertain financial markets; conditions in target markets, such as that some ISOs are taking longer than others to comply with FERC's requirement to update market rules to include new technology such as ours, and also such as that frequency regulation pricing is lower in the short-term than at many times in the past; 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: Chris Witty Darrow Associates 646.438.9385 cwitty@darrowir.com