Pentadyne Power Corp., a manufacturer of flywheel-based energy storage systems, has introduced a new version of its product that it claims provides 50% more power than previous generation systems.
The new product, called the VSS+, delivers up to 190 kilowatts of power and up to 2,700 kW second of energy, compared with 120 kilowatts and up to 2,400 kW second of energy in the prior VSS system, the company said. VSS+ ranges in price from $30,000 to $40,000, roughly the same as the earlier system, said Pentadyne president and chief executive Mark McGough.
A flywheel system stores energy mechanically in the form of kinetic energy by spinning a mass around an axis. The VSS+, for example, spins at a rate of about 50,000 revolutions per minute. Pentadyne's products are intended to replace lead-acid batteries used in uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems, but they can also be integrated into adjustable speed drives for protection against voltage sags and power outages.
McGough, who was named Pentadyne CEO in May, told Managing Automation that flywheel systems have a number of advantages compared with batteries, including a life expectancy of up to 20 years, compared with two to three years for a battery; lower lifecycle costs; and greater reliability.
Pentadyne was able to improve the price/performance of VSS+, McGough said, by achieving a number of manufacturing efficiencies, including reducing the number of electronic boards and specialty components used in the system. "We were able to cut a lot of cost out of the earlier line," he said.
McGough said that privately held Pentadyne, which was formed in 1998, currently has about 50 systems installed. Customers include Northrop Grumman, NASA, and Beaver Aerospace & Defense. The 50-employee, $4 million company, he noted, already has a $4 million backlog of orders for the new VSS+ system. Pentadyne OEM systems are marketed by Emerson's Liebert unit in North America and by Socomec in Europe and Asia.
In June, Pentadyne -- along with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, California Energy Commission, Sun Microsystems, Intel, and Cisco -- participated in a demonstration project to prove how the nation's data centers could achieve significant energy savings by using DC power instead of AC (alternating current) power. Pentadyne supplied a flywheel-based system connected to a rectifier that converts incoming AC power into 400-volt DC power. (Read how manufacturers are contending with surging energy costs.)
Pentadyne, based in Chatsworth, CA,
is backed by a variety of venture capital firms and energy industry companies, including Nth Power, Rustic Canyon Partners, DTE Energy, Energy InnovationsPortfolio, Electricité de France, and venture capitalist Ben Rosen, a cofounder of Sevin Rosen Funds and former chairman of Compaq Computer.
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