AltEnergy Investor

EPOD International plan IPO

EPOD International, is planning a public listing. The company claims to be the leaders in electric power storage systems for the Distributed Generation, Co-Generation, Wind and Solar Power markets.

Of particular interest to me is their recent teaming-up with a Canadian Wind Power company to test commercial levels of energy storage during off-peak times to sell back into the grid during peak hours, using the EPOD EMT Energy Storage system.

Windpower's greatest weakness is that it is not predictable and the power it produces at night is almost worthless. Yet the subsidy structure all over the world dictates that it is worth exactly the same price. It's fascinating that the company values the wind energy storage market at $20 billion - double the existing wind power market !

If EPOD really does crack energy storage on that scale, we could see an end to the spikes in spot electricity prices, sometimes multiples of the ordinary price.

Solon AG

Solon AG, Germany's first listed solar company back in 1998, has just bought a 10 kilowatt hour energy storage device from Canadian firm, VRB Power Systems.

This is an important development because Germany's solar market has hitherto only been grid-connected, without any local energy storage backup. Returns are generated by feeding the solar power straight back into the grid rather than using it yourself.

It's always been my view that this is a more efficient way to use solar power - at source with the batteries and use the grid as a backup.

Active Power - leads the way with Megawatt class flywheels

Nasdaq-listed Active Power, recently received another order for it's 1 megawatt class - the largest commercially available - flywheels. The company claims it is the leader in battery-free uninterrupted power solutions.

"This is our largest megawatt-class UPS order to date and offers conclusive proof that our high power UPS initiative is gaining strength," said Joe Pinkerton, CEO and Chairman of Active Power. "With its lightning storms and hurricanes, the outage profile of the Southeast U.S. can push conventional backup systems beyond their limits, but this is just the type of environment where our battery-free systems shine. We are beginning to see results from our efforts in a broad range of opportunities for this product in healthcare, data center and industrial applications. This installation also highlights the significant upfront work our OEM partner Caterpillar has been doing over the past several quarters."

Sometimes I think there could be a great synergy between a 50 kw wind turbine and a medium-sized flywheel. At the moment though, flywheels appear to be the preserve of large power applications.

Beacon Power

Nasdaq listed Beacon Power, earlier this week announced acceptance of its flywheel demonstration by the California Energy Commission. Beacon's stock promptly rallied closing yesterday at 1.77 up from a low of 1.34 the day before. Flywheels are actually kinetic, or mechanical batteries, spinning at very high speeds (>20,000 rpm) to store energy that is instantly available when needed.

The company also makes solar inverter systems.

In alternative energy technology, it's easy to pay attention to the big ticket items like solar panels and wind turbines. But it is energy storage and power conversion devices that will make large scale integration of renewable power possible.

That's why Beacon Power looks to have a very good niche.