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Technology Stocks : Beacon Power (BCON) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Paul Hackett who wrote (10)	7/31/2001 12:28:17 PM
From: Jim Oravetz	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 49

Beacon Power Announces Second-Quarter Financial Results Company Achieves Key Milestones Including Delivery of Commercial Test Units to Verizon Tuesday, July 31, 2001 08:40:48 AM - PR Newswire WILMINGTON, Mass., Jul 31, 2001 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Beacon Power Corporation (Nasdaq: BCON), a leading manufacturer of flywheel energy storage systems that provide highly reliable, high-quality uninterruptible electric power, today announced its financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2001. For the second quarter of 2001, Beacon Power reported a net loss of $6.3 million, or ($0.15) per share, compared to a net loss of $2.5 million in the second quarter of 2000. In the second quarter of 2001, Beacon invested $4.2 million on R&D, $2.4 million on SG&A and had depreciation costs of $0.3 million, partially offset by other income of $0.6 million. As of June 30, 2001, Beacon Power had $47.9 million in cash and cash equivalents. "We continued to achieve the milestones necessary to transition from a development-stage company to the world's leading producer of leading-edge flywheel systems," said Beacon Power President and Chief Executive Officer William E. Stanton. "We are particularly pleased with our progress in satisfying Verizon's milestones by demonstrating the rapid installation of our flywheel system and our commercial electronics control module. We recently installed several of our Model 20C1000 Flywheel Energy Storage Systems (FESS) to provide standby power at one of Verizon's remote terminal sites. The flywheel systems replace existing battery-powered systems and are providing back up power to approximately 1,000 Verizon subscribers. They represent Beacon's final commercial-grade products, and their installation is the next step in an ongoing Verizon field trial, prior to an initial production contract." "Also during the quarter, we achieved another significant milestone with the certification of our flywheel and associated control electronics by Underwriters Laboratories (UL)," continued Stanton. "This means that our products have met the most stringent product safety testing standards for mechanical and electrical systems. Beacon currently has the only UL-certified composite flywheel energy storage system sized to meet the power and duration requirements of the telecommunications industry. UL certification will facilitate the roll out of our products to utility and telecommunications customers and will speed the listing process for future product offerings, including our 6kWh FESS unit under development." "Less than four months after beginning the full-scale development of our 6kWh prototype flywheel, we are achieving breakthrough performance," stated Stanton. "Last month, our engineering prototypes completed performance tests at their rated operating speed of 22,500 rpm and set a new performance record in the flywheel energy storage industry by providing continuous back-up power for up to 30 hours. We are ahead of our schedule on these 6kWh units and expect manufacturing qualification before the end of the year, with beta units available in the field during the fourth quarter of 2001." "We made strides during the quarter in developing our sales and marketing organization," said Stanton. "We hired four senior sales professionals, bringing to five the number of sales managers covering major regions of the United States. These professionals have sold extensively into the power and energy technology capital goods sector and have experience in such companies as Best Power, Exide, Peco, and Powerware." "We are also excited about our efforts in forming strategic alliances to expand our product line and channels to the power quality and distributed generation markets," added Stanton. "In addition to our previously announced partnership with Urenco for high-power composite flywheel systems, we are also actively pursuing other alliances with several of the world's largest energy and power equipment companies on commercialization and development agreements." "All of these developments point to solid progress in our transition to a commercial manufacturer of power reliability solutions," continued Stanton. "Year to date, Beacon has shipped 10 production units and we expect to ship an additional 40 units by the end of the year. We also continue to build out our infrastructure and manufacturing capabilities. In June, we began manufacturing a simplified version of the Beacon 2kWh flywheel system containing fewer parts, which is easier to assemble and quicker to install. Shipments of these systems will begin in the third quarter." Concluded Stanton, "Beacon remains uniquely positioned in the industry to capitalize on the $4 billion opportunity for communications and power quality and reliability solutions. We are on track with our progress to penetrate this exciting market, and our business outlook is excellent. I look forward to reporting further progress to Beacon Power's shareholders in the coming quarters." The Market Opportunity for Flywheel Energy Storage Systems The digital economy has created a burgeoning demand for reliable, high-quality electric power -- what some analysts estimate as a $12 billion market. The continuing power disruptions nationwide are a reminder of the problems caused by unreliable power. Beacon Power has initially targeted the $4 billion communications segment of this market. The company's family of Flywheel Energy Storage Systems is designed to replace the conventional lead-acid battery systems that today supply back-up power for broadband cable and telecom networks. Like battery backup systems, Beacon Power's flywheel technology provides uninterruptible emergency power until the primary supply of electricity is restored. But, compared to lead-acid batteries, Beacon Power's flywheel systems offer superior reliability, are insensitive to temperature fluctuations, have a lower life-cycle cost, and do not contain toxic materials or fluids. They also last much longer than batteries, require less maintenance and can be reliably monitored remotely via modem or the Internet. Conference Call Information Beacon Power will host a conference call today, July 31, at 11:00 a.m., Eastern Daylight Time. The call will also be broadcast live, via the Internet, at Beacon's Web site, www.beaconpower.com .

To: Paul Hackett who wrote (10)	12/7/2005 12:21:36 PM
From: Skywatcher	Respond to of 49

Flywheels May Help Keep Grid Running By Marc Lifsher, Times Staff Writer SAN RAMON, Calif. — Whirling flywheels, based on the same mechanism that powered pottery wheels in ancient times and run the latest self-winding wristwatches, soon could be enlisted in California's battle to keep its air conditioners humming on even the hottest summer afternoons. On Tuesday, state energy officials gathered at a Pacific Gas & Electric Co. research facility east of San Francisco to unveil a shipping-container-size array of high-tech flywheels that can store enough electricity to serve about 750 homes. Experts say that could be sufficient to keep the electricity grid running reliably if a momentary surge or shortage were to jolt the system. "People don't realize how delicate the grid is," said Gene Hunt, director of corporate communications for Beacon Power, the Wilmington, Mass., company that has developed the first-of-its-kind flywheel system for storing and recycling electrons. The ability to almost instantaneously convert mechanical flywheel power into electricity could help grid operators avert blackouts by "keeping switches from tripping, circuits from overloading and equipment from being damaged," he said. U.S. electricity grids are huge machines in which all of the equipment, operating on alternating current, pulses together at a frequency of 60 hertz, or 60 cycles per second. Grids become unstable if the frequency varies by more than one-half of 1 hertz, Hunt said. Employing the same principle that keeps a yo-yo turning, Beacon's flywheel system, dubbed a "megawatt in a box," uses the grid's extra electrical energy to spin a series of disks. When the grid needs power, the motors driving the flywheels become mini-generators and the disks gradually spin slower. Flywheel units eventually could provide California with as much as 3% of its electrical needs and save millions of dollars for utility ratepayers by alleviating the need to contract with generators for expensive standby power, officials from California's grid operator said. Currently, inefficient and polluting power plants provide last-minute generation to avoid rolling blackouts when problems develop. Once installed, the flywheels should require little of the costly maintenance required by conventional power plants, Beacon President and Chief Executive Bill Capp said. Unlike chemical batteries, which contain hazardous materials, the flywheels can't explode and are designed to work continuously for at least 20 years, he said. The ability to store and release large amounts of electricity — safely, quickly and cleanly over short periods of time — could become crucial during the next few years as California increases the amount of power from renewable sources such as wind and solar energy, said Ken Wiseman, chairman of the California Independent System Operator, the nonprofit corporation that operates about 75% of the state's transmission lines. Alternative forms of energy, although they don't pollute, can be unreliable when the wind stops or shifts direction or when clouds block the sun. "We'll have more of an imbalance" between supply and demand, and "this is another tool for managing them," Wiseman said. Cal-ISO, which is sponsoring the tests of Beacon Power's flywheels along with the California Energy Commission and the U.S. Department of Energy, is hoping the new technology will be commercially available by early 2007, Wiseman said. "This is real-world [testing]," he said. "We have to keep the lights on."