Beacon Power Corporation (Nasdaq: BCON), a company developing flywheel frequency-regulation systems for the electricity grid, announced that it has signed a $2 million contract with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).
NYSERDA will provide partial funding for critical grid infrastructure elements at Beacon’s 20-megawatts (MW) frequency regulation plant in Stephentown, New York, including interconnection components to allow the plant to interface with the New York power grid. NYSERDA will also fund certain other project aspects, including a visitor information center to be built at the Stephentown site.
Frequency regulation is an essential grid service that is performed by
maintaining a tight balance between electricity supply and demand.
Beacon’s 20-MW plant has been designed to provide frequency regulation
services by absorbing electricity from the grid when there is too much,
and storing it as kinetic energy in a matrix of flywheel systems. When
there is not enough power to meet demand, the flywheels inject energy
back into the grid, thus helping to maintain proper electricity
frequency (60 cycles/second).
“Advanced energy-storage technologies like the one Beacon is incorporating into its plant are essential for New York to achieve substantial reductions in our greenhouse gas emissions and energy use,” Francis J. Murray, Jr., NYSERDA president and CEO said.
Beacon first demonstrated how its flywheel technology could respond to grid frequency regulation control signals in New York with a small-scale energy storage project in Amsterdam that was partially funded by NYSERDA in 2006. The Company broke ground at the Stephentown site in November 2009, after the project won approvals by the New York State Public Service Commission, the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), and the local planning board.
Thanks to their ability to recycle electricity efficiently and act as “shock absorbers” to the grid, Beacon’s flywheel plants will also help support the integration of greater amounts of renewable (but intermittent) wind and solar power resources. Unlike conventional fossil fuel-powered generators that provide frequency regulation, flywheel plants will not consume any fuel, nor will they directly produce CO2 greenhouse gas emissions or other air pollutants, such as NOX or SO2.
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