SatCon Technology Corp. (Cambridge, MA) and Beacon Power Corp. (Woburn, MA) announced that they are collaborating to develop a 250kW UPS that they expect to have available in the last quarter of calendar year 2001. The 250kW UPS will include a Beacon-supplied steel flywheel, SatCon's power conversion electronics, controls and grid interface and a commercially available diesel, natural-gas or dual-fuel generator. Assembly will be performed at SatCon's manufacturing facilities in Worcester, MA and Anaheim, CA.
“We believe there is a growing market for these kinds of systems," commented
David Eisenhaure, SatCon's president and CEO. “We see the problems some places are having with power reliability and, in today's economy, businesses just can't afford to be without power. We think there are customers today, like manufacturing plants, fabrication plants, communications nodes, financial services providers and hospitals, among others, who need a compact, reliable, long-life, near-term available solution to offset line faults and failures."
In addition to the new product announcement, Beacon Power and SatCon have entered into a long-term supplier and marketing cooperation agreement. Under the agreement, SatCon agrees to give Beacon the opportunity to bid on flywheel and flywheel components for use in SatCon's StarSine MegaPower UPS systems. Beacon, in turn, agrees to give SatCon the opportunity to bid on electronics, motors and related electronic and motor assemblies for use in Beacon's flywheel energy storage systems. The companies agree to purchase those bids that meet the terms of the agreement, the required specifications, price, quality of deliverables and delivery terms.
