EaglePicher Partners with Arista on New York City Demand Reduction Project

EaglePicher Technologies, LLC, (EPT) has been awarded a contract to supply its patented PowerPyramid™ energy storage solution to be incorporated into Arista Power, Inc.'s Power on Demand ("PoD") system for a large multi-story building in New York City. EPT's PowerPyramid™ system will provide 200 kW/900 kWh of energy storage integrated into Arista's PoD system that will be installed in the selected building. The system utilizes energy storage to reduce utility costs, specifically demand charges, and allow seamless enrollment to demand response programs.

“We are very pleased to be involved with this project,” said Dave Lucero, EPT’s Director of Alternative/Grid Energy Storage, “This is a tremendous opportunity for us to leverage our capabilities and provide solutions to energy demand challenges in large metropolitan areas, and specifically in New York City”.

"We are pleased to be partnering with Eagle Picher Technologies," said Mark Matthews, President of Arista Power. "We believe our Power on Demand system is made to order for the New York City market due to New York's high electricity and demand rates and that there are literally thousands of buildings in the New York City area that are candidates for this system. Working with Eagle Picher will allow us to integrate our Power on Demand software with the flexibility provided from Eagle Picher's PowerPyramid™ to optimize the system’s value for NYC customers and increase our penetration into the NYC market."

EPT’s Power Pyramid™ employs EaglePicher’s proprietary Battery Management System (BMS) for control of battery functions and communications. Battery management is the process to ensure that a series cell battery string receives an optimum charge without damage to the battery string. A problem with large series battery strings is maintaining cell balance. For various reasons including variations in manufacture, thermal gradients across the cell modules, replacement of a used cell with a new one, etc, cells may differ in capacity, impedance, or state of charge. If cells are out of balance, system capacity is lost because the battery can only be charged until the highest cell reaches its maximum voltage or discharged until the lowest cell reaches its minimum voltage.

Worse, because a cell, which is low for any of the above reasons, will have a higher terminal voltage during charge and will self-heat more during discharge, any imbalance within the pack tends to become worse with every cycle. The battery management process includes battery string charge control and cell fault protection. Safety is a major concern when charging Lithium Ion cells. Providing proper charge control for the battery system will mitigate safety concerns and extend battery life.

EPT’s Power Pyramid™ BMS is able to transfer charge between cells. It allows essentially all of the capacity of the battery to be utilized. By transferring energy out of lower capacity cells during charge, the State of Charge (SOC) of the entire pack can be brought to 100% without wasting energy. Likewise, by preferentially transferring energy out of higher capacity cells during discharge, the entire pack can be discharged to the target minimum SOC. The extra energy in higher-capacity cells is made available to the application. EPT also recently installed and commissioned a 300 kW/1.2 MWh PowerPyramid™ system at ATK launch systems site in Promontory, Utah, and was recently awarded a contract from the Carthage Water & Electric Plant for 100 kW/216 kWh system in Carthage, Missouri.

Arista Power's Power on Demand system can utilize inputs from multiple energy sources including solar, wind, fuel cells, generators and the grid with a custom-designed battery storage system and a proprietary smart monitoring technology that releases energy at optimal times to reduce electricity costs - particularly demand charges.