Active Power ships MegaWatt system to Latin America

This order marks the 25th MegaWatt Class machine the company has sold this year, providing approximately $7 million in order value for these solutions to the company. This represents a 500% increase in order volume for this product over the same period of 2005; this includes recent announcements regarding an Asian airport and an African sugar refinery.

"Active Power is pleased to have this opportunity and provide a solution that will contribute to the efficiency and productivity of this manufacturing operation. Our system was chosen for several reasons; high efficiency, therefore low operational costs, reduced space requirements, and lower maintenance costs," said Jim Clishem, President and CEO of Active Power. "We've seen significant growth in the demand for our high powered systems. The market has absolutely embraced our flywheel-based UPS systems as a compelling choice for high power applications, selecting us over more traditional power quality designs."

The company has received orders for MegaWatt Class systems to support data centers, manufacturing facilities, airports, and petrochemical applications in the U.S., Latin America, Asia, and Africa. The company attributes success in selling these systems to a unique combination of product differentiators that deliver bottom-line value to the customer. First, the Active Power system puts twice the power in half the space making prudent use of valuable floor space that can be used for revenue-generating items in the core operation. Second, the MegaWatt Class systems are 98% energy efficient, which means they consume less commercial power than a UPS with batteries, which in turn, lowers opex.

Third, the systems are more reliable - the DC energy source is a flywheel that will spin for 20 years without degradation in service. There has not been a battery invented yet that delivers that type of performance for power quality applications. Fourth, this is a green solution, and an economical one at that. Most green solutions end up costing the client more, but Active Power's is economically green, which means it will lower the client's TCO (total cost of ownership) as compared to other solutions available in the market.

"We are thrilled that clients around the globe have embraced our solutions and our technology," said David Beatty, Vice President Engineering for Active Power. "It's just this type of response that has prompted us to invest in the expansion of our MegaWatt Class solution set. We look forward to bringing additional products, at these power levels, to the market in the near term."