News

Digital Gas Partners with ICCU for Power Storage Breakthrough

July 10, 2005 by Jeff Shepard

Digital Gas Inc. (Dallas, TX) announced that it will partner with ICCU (the Netherlands) to manufacture and market an advanced ultracapacitor, which can operate over a minimum 30-year lifetime with zero maintenance. The parties will initially operate under the corporate name "Digital Ultracap." The new, low-cost energy storage device is ready for market this year. It has the potential to revolutionize the use of green power and distributed generation, as well as to improve the robustness and efficiency of the traditional electric power grid.

The new ultracap will provide an affordable buffer between utility power generation capacity and power consumption on a massive scale. The use of Digital Ultracap's product will improve the robustness of the grid and permit significant amounts of less reliable distributed co-generation to be added to the grid. In addition, the energy storage unit will permit the operation of remote power facilities that depend on local renewable generation without access to the grid. The new ultracapacitor will efficiently store the energy produced until it is needed for use. The ultracap will allow utilities to minimize the power generation capacity on hand since they can now economically store electricity that can be instantly tapped when either a spike occurs in electric consumption by their industrial, commercial and residential customers or there is unforeseen equipment downtime.

Digital Gas, which is partnering with ICCU to commercialize the ultracapacitor in North and South America and other markets to be announced, intends to work closely with major utilities, as well as local, state and national governments to rapidly and fully exploit the environmental and economic benefits of the storage technology. Digital Ultracap's product, which can store electricity with 95% efficiency, can currently offer utilities energy storage systems at approximately $400 per kilowatt-hour, including power electronics. Existing flow-battery systems store energy with only 80% to 85% efficiency.