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I doubt that we will hear what companies have expressed interest from the courts. Hopefully something will leak out who has submitted paperwork for financial able to bid but I am not hopeful.
G´day BCONQers ... Based on this we should hear today who is interested in buying the plant.
Judge Kevin Carey signed an order in Wilmington, Delaware, today setting the deadline for non-binding indications of interest at Jan. 9; the final bid deadline at Feb 1; an auction of company assets on Feb. 3; and a sale-approval hearing Feb. 7.
GFTA
Flywheel technology is not meant as a power backup, it is meant for frequency regulation which fluctuates on a second by second basis. Without power grid frequency regulation you would have brown outs and destructive damage to electrical equipment.
Power grid frequency is kept within +/- 0.5Hz of 60Hz. In times of high demand (during the day) inefficient (~50%) and polluting diesel generators are kept running to meet the demands.
As stated, power plants can't respond in seconds but take many minutes to adjust to demands. Flywheel technology siphons off excess energy created during low demand time and supplies it back to the grid in times of high demand with no diesel and no pollution.
Seems to me that anything other than doing some trading on this stock while it is in BK is just throwing you money away. I think the technology is a combination of the wrong and bad technology for utility grid regulation. And apparently the market for it agreed.
1. i can't find any actual specifications for the Beacon units but all flywheel technologies i have seen are meant for 10-30 seconds of backup power. After that they go off-line. regulation gone. Makes it unreliable.
2. if, as i have read, the Beacon unit is 85% efficient, that is horrible. there is far better technology available in smaller units that would certainly work on larger systems. Keep in mind, these run continuously meaning they continuously waste 15% of the power. If they are 'regulating' coal fired plants, think of the added CO2 they are producing. renewable energy is still a very small percentage of generated power.
3. Generators and even battery systems only run when needed which is infrequent so they still end up being far more efficient than the flywheel that has to be on-line continuously. Generators are also available for hours if needed. Not an expert but i understand nuclear and coal fired power plant can't respond in seconds but can ramp up over 15-30 minutes to meet demands.
4. They probably thought they's ride the 'Green' movement, but in the end, it comes down to economics. its all about the $'s. The added cost of these systems will be paid by the users in rate increases, or by smaller profit and shareholder value. both of which Utilities want to avoid.
I consider that to be minor in the scheme of things as Beacon's flywheels have some pretty unique materials.
The better advantage that I see vs batteries in short term regulation is that batteries can only discharge to the grid because if they pull too much to quickly they can damage the batteries where flywheels can both discharge energy to and remove energy from the grid.
Another benefit of flywheel technology is you don't have disposal issues that you would have with battery technology.
He is stating that its old tech as there are other flywheels that are 90-95% efficient. However it appears that those are still in labs not in commercial production. I would assume Beacon has ideas of how to get to 90% also as they have more expertice in the real world which is where the real learning is.
For me the cost for me isn't how efficient it is, its how much it costs provide demand response for 1MW of power. By all accounts it cost $70M for the construction of the Stephenstown plant and they think they can do future ones for $53M. The company has a history of overpromising both on expenses and potential revenues so lets cut in half and say that the next install for 20 MW is $60M or approximately $3M/MW.
My understanding of Lithium battery tech is that its about 50% higher than flywheels for short term storage. There are some other potential battery tech out there (Axion Power) that are supposedly 1/3 as much as Lith Ion that just came out with a 100kw test plant that is supposed to scale up to 500kw in the near term that supposedly will be about $2M for a 1MW which has some other benefits but who knows if it will scale properly. Even if upfront Axion is cheaper the battery life may be 10 years where I've estimated flywheels tech to hopefully be 20 years and hopefully longer.
Unfortunately for Beacon, next day pricing has declined sharply in the recession with the NYISO as having the lowest prices around due to excess supply. For some bean counter crunching NPV this makes the tech seemingly worth less and may mute offers.
FD: I have no position but may initiate one before the sale especially if we get reports that there are multiple pre-qualified bids.
Is he trying to make 85% efficient look bad? Diesel generators are at best 56% efficient. Then you have the cost of fuel and pollution which the flywheel does not have. This is a massive improvement over current technology.
Has anyone asked the us truste for a equiie commitie
I like the potential of the company and their IP - They have something here if they can just navigate these hurddles.
Yep, that´s what caught my eye and got me thinking on the potential for a Joint Venture ... either with new backers or the D.O.E. themselves ... after the banks being propped up I can´t see why BCON should not be able to propose a deferred repayment scheme ... we´re either or on a winner or we lose all ... interesting that staff can also gamble on them coming out ahead after the hearing .... that indicates to me that they believe in the technology and that there will be a good outcome to the bankruptcy hearings ... one can only hope right now.
I need to start paying more attention to this, thanks SN.
I think the key here is contained in this verbiage:
"Our flywheel plant is the only one of its kind in the world, so we would be best qualified to run it from day one," he said. "The experience here is truly unique."
Read more: http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/energy-storage-project-still-on-hold-because-of-bankruptcy/article_83d2bece-25aa-11e1-ae3c-001871e3ce6c.html#ixzz1hwD0ltjN
If they can find a way to satisfy the DOE or better get out from underneath them this should do well.
Shark, Have you seen this one ?
They seem determined to keep the company going one way or another - I guess they´ll be looking for a JV with the buyer of the Stephentown facility.
insert-text-here
Hadn't seen this either, very interesting.
Haven't really been following along lately ... But that sounds about right from what I recall.
Older post but one I´ve never seen.
insert-text-here
hi Shark ... OK this looks like good news for BCONQ ... they can basically choose who to sell to and work out a deal moving forward.
I think I like ...
GFTA
Beacon Power Wins Judge’s Approval for Auction Procedures
By Phil Milford - Dec 27, 2011 1:06 PM PT .
...
Beacon Power Corp., the maker of electricity-storage gear that received $43 million in backing from a program that supported failed solar-panel maker Solyndra LLC, won a bankruptcy judge’s approval of sale procedures.
Judge Kevin Carey signed an order in Wilmington, Delaware, today setting the deadline for non-binding indications of interest at Jan. 9; the final bid deadline at Feb 1; an auction of company assets on Feb. 3; and a sale-approval hearing Feb. 7.
The procedures are “in the best interests” of Beacon, based in Tyngsboro, Massachusetts, and its creditors, Carey wrote in the order.
Beacon filed for court protection Oct. 30 after struggling to raise private financing. It reported assets of $72 million and debt of $47 million in its Chapter 11 petition.
The company uses flywheel technology to store energy for quick use in electrical power grids.
Solyndra, which filed for bankruptcy in September, received $535 million in federal loan guarantees and couldn’t compete with government-subsidized foreign manufacturers.
The case is In re Beacon Power Corp., 11-13450, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware (Wilmington).
To contact the reporter on this story: Phil Milford in Wilmington, Delaware, at pmilford@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Pickering at jpickering@bloomberg.net.
If I'm not mistaken, there should have been a hearing with the bankruptcy judge last week. Does anyone have any information regarding the outcome? The BCON website is silent on this.
Personally, I hold out little hope that current stockholders will survive any sale.
Cork you are doing and saying the exact same things my best friend known here as mountain hiker he got banned from qsgi telling off bashers he likes the gold silver plays too. Bummer bcon profit hasnt thanks cork for your input I have marked you as follow
So why doesn´t the D.O.E. convert their loan to shares in BCON ?
They will make money in the long run in the same way as the US Treasury did when they bailed out the banks !!!!
Looks like there is mileage in this baby yet !
GFTA
BCON Seeking buyer who sees the light
http://www.timesunion.com/business/article/Seeking-buyer-who-sees-the-light-2400990.php
I made a little on QSGI before the Q came off but nothing since then.
Was doing pretty well with miners too, but the recent assault on precious metals has snuffed that light out of late.
I've been dumping all the marginals and bulking up on quality gold, silver, and copper producers.
Copper is gonna get hammered for a while, but just like the BS with Gold and Silver, that's what creates the opportunities.
The current financial crisis is really really bad. It's gonna make 2008-9 look like the "good old days."
Hey Cork sorry to seem a personal because I cannot private message but have you made any money since our investment with Qsgi have you had other good adventures end up profitable ? all my money is tied up into QSGI and fbcd thanks I got out of bconq with loss
Howdy Zomax, good to see you too. I was thinking of those 100 and 200 share trades walking it down.
Seems odd when one third to half of the trades in a day are all under 500 shares.
Those aren't guys like us selling, therefore ... who and why?
Hi Cork by head fakes do you mean the false look of volume taking off I think that's what you mean thanks good to see you again oh and go bconq
Don´t we have a day in court this week - I recall someone posted on 15th December ?
As we all know buying BCONQ at this point is gambling on a lotto that is hoping the asset sales bring back more than what they owe to the DOE. At that point anything over $45M should go to shareholders assuming its a complete sale of the company (I don't think they will be able to sell the plant to continue to go it alone, nor should they) as they need funding.
Here is part of an email I got from a guy who is a notorious bear on BCON so take it for what its worth.
"Beacon Power sought protection just days after officials in the Energy
Department's loan division--under sharp criticism in the wake of solar-panel
maker Solyndra LLC's bankruptcy--said they would stop funding Beacon Power's
loan. "
Since they botched the Solyndra deal they are using Beacon as their scapegoat to try and save face. Will be interesting to see if the judge is swayed by any of this.
Things heating up around here? I wonder if they´re still trying to get the investors together to save this project.
By Katy Stech
Of DOW JONES DAILY BANKRUPTCY REVIEW
The U.S. Department of Energy is protesting the limits that Massachusetts
renewable electricity-storage company Beacon Power Corp. put on the agency's
ability to bid on the company's flagship power storage plant at a bankruptcy
auction.
In court papers filed Thursday, department officials asked a bankruptcy judge
to demand that the company make changes to its sale strategy to put the
department in a more favorable position to buy the plant at the company's
proposed January auction. The request raises the possibility that the
government would take control of the plant outside Albany, N.Y., which absorbs
extra grid electricity that can be put back into the power system later and on
quick notice.
The Energy Department already sits first in line to recover money from that
sale. The agency is owed about $39 million on a loan guarantee that Beacon
Power executives used to build the plant.
Agency officials want to be able to use that debt as currency that it could
put toward bidding at the auction for the plant, which the company has proposed
to sell on Jan. 25. The proposed auction plan, department attorneys said,
"impermissibly attempts to extinguish...limit and otherwise burden" the right
that it has to bid the full amount, according to documents filed with the U.S.
Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del.
Agency officials also protested the long list of requirements that the
company put forth for bidders. That list would enable the company to throw out
bidders it doesn't consider fit to buy the plant.
A bankruptcy judge is expected to review Beacon Power's auction proposal at a
hearing Thursday.
Beacon Power executives never planned to hold the sale. They originally
intended to use the company's Chapter 11 bankruptcy case to reorganize the
business, perhaps by selling valuable patents and moving forward on building a
second storage plant outside Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
But the Energy Department said in court documents that it would have to pay
for those expensive reorganization efforts while the company's only operating
plant continued to incur losses of nearly $1 million each month.
The sale process is expected to recover a fraction of the department's loan
amount. The company valued the plant at about $12 million in its recent
quarterly filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Beacon Power's publicly traded shares were suspended from Nasdaq on Nov. 10.
The company filed for bankruptcy on Oct. 30 after from spending more than
$200 million to develop technology that could recycle unused power left over
from conventional utility power grids. That technology has the ability to pump
the leftover power back into the electricity grid faster than traditional
sources, the company said.
The company, which employed about 65 workers at the time of the filing, holds
dozens of patents on its technology. It listed assets of $72 million and debt
of $47 million in its bankruptcy petition.
Beacon Power sought protection just days after officials in the Energy
Department's loan division--under sharp criticism in the wake of solar-panel
maker Solyndra LLC's bankruptcy--said they would stop funding Beacon Power's
loan.
By the time Solyndra filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September,
it had also spend most of the $535 million loan that was guaranteed by the same
agency program, which used money from the 2009 economic-stimulus bill to
encourage renewable energy projects. Solyndra's loan guarantee created a
political firestorm because the department agreed to move behind other
creditors when Solyndra's debt was restructured in February.
(Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review covers news about distressed companies and
those under bankruptcy protection.)
-Katy Stech, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review; 202-862-1344;
katherine.stech@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
12-09-11 1404ET
Copyright (c) 2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
14:04 120911
100 share "trade," = 5.10 ... 200 share "trade" = 10.20 ... so far today 15 out of the 26 "trades" are for less than 1,000 shares.
Don't fall for the head fakes.
That's a good saying, Zomax!
Well there is a saying that "if you don't stand for something you will fall for anything"
Gee I will give GE a thought LOL, but that means beacon shares go bye bye and company would be taken over by GEE I don't know I bet your on to something ...
Howdy Zomax. Still holding on here. Wish the pussies would quit falling for it already though LoL!
howdy Cork I 1st met you with QSGI over a year ago are you still holding I am, as for beacon power or bconq your theory is worth pondering because I do NOT see this technology going away. With the life expectancy of the devices they will more than pay for themselves, So it makes one wonder who is standing by to pick them up?
Right Ecomike. Don't forget however, it's a different set of dynamics for post Q Beacon players. Sorry for your or anybody's loss for sure.
All I need to be very happy is a 4 or 5 cent bump which is very different from your case.
They can get that much from incidental fluctuation around court dates, so what management did or didn't do isn't as relevant from the Q players perspective as it is for your situation. Good luck with it Ecomike, hope it works out for everybody.
Jeezus-
I cannot see the bk court approving this. Gambling with their salaries just in a hope to make a save a few bucks. This must mean their cash on hand is even less than they thought/ or they are burning through more and need to conserve cash.
Now I am waiting for news that they haven't paid the employee taxes, etc. I've only seen this once before in a BK and it didn't end well.
As per Delaware shareholder services
"Beacon Power Allowing All Employees to Gamble on Sale
Beacon Power Corp., a developer of flywheel technology to store electric energy, is proposing a bonus program for all employees where the workers are as likely to lose as they are to win.
If approved by the bankruptcy court in Delaware at a Dec. 15 hearing, any employee can defer up to 25 percent of income. The workers have already been given a 20 percent salary reduction.
For all of the workers who agree to participate, the aggregate deferral can't exceed $100,000. If the business is sold for enough to repay the cash collateral of the U.S. Energy Department used during bankruptcy, the workers will receive a bonus up to 100 percent of the deferred salary.
Beacon has power to use the Energy Department's $3 million in cash on condition that the assets be sold not later than Jan. 25.
There will be a hearing in bankruptcy court on Dec. 15 for approval of auction and sale procedures. The proposed schedule calls for initial indications of interest by Jan. 9, followed by formal bids on Jan. 23, the auction on Jan. 25, and a hearing to approve the sale on Jan. 30."
On the other hand the company has had a hoard of employees, about 70 give or take, and a well paid executive staff, that burned through tens of millions of investor dollars in cash, with no end in site, and never were able to sell or finance a single plant with out feeding off the US DOE T! They also relentlessly diluted prior investors as they burned through that cash for years.
I drank the Koolaid, big mistake, about 18 months ago and believed analyst reports that they would have reached break even by now just with the NY plant online at full capacity. What a lie that was!!! Now I hear they may sell the NY plant for a tiny fraction of its cost, and a fraction of what DOE lent for its construction, but the BK filling said they had 30 million in assets more than debts (another lie?), and a few weeks later they suggest the plant will be sold for 25% of what they own for the loans they used to help build it, much less what the total cost was. So what I want to know is where and what are the other $55 million in assets they claimed to have. If they can't earn a profit running the plant after getting a sweat heart DOE low interest loan for most of the cost to build it, 39 million $$s, how will they ever survive, and why would anyone buy the technology, if it is unprofitable????
I have no doubt common shareholders are about to get ripped off one more time, as they already got ripped off for years, long before the Chapter 11 BK. Only this time, I expect a big power company, like SO, or a power house like Westinghouse or GE to pick up the IP prize for crumbs.
I think the DOE was had, and manipulated just like we investors were.
It looked like a "set up" by the DOE right from the beginning, to me. They forced the company into bankruptcy, and are forcing the sale of the plant.
I think they are trying to swipe the technology and award it to somebody as some kind of a payback.
Loathsome stinking turds!
Yes I know about BK it almost seems as if someone or group wants them to fail, You think the "green" people would be behind this 100% because it brings down the use of coal that is burned/wasted for those short burst of needed power.
You do know they are in BK, Chapter 11, and the common may get hosed, right?
A form of legal theft by ambulance chasers, wallstreet sharks, and banksters all aided by inept, incompetent financial management of a a great new IP company.
Wow your post is my story exactly for BCONQ, I work in the power industry and this concept of theirs is awesome for the power grid , yet I have no idea why the stock is not taking off, I guess once they start making revenue then investors can see what their cash flow potential can be, BCON will be awesome.
Sure are a lot of 100 share, 200 share, 300 share trades all of a sudden. Funny how many of those are paint downs. It was doing that on Friday too.
I guess you need to cite the source(s), as I don't see it.
Right now the market seems to fear that the assets in this one will get stripped from existing shareholders with a wholesale asset sale, that leaves investors with nothing.
Market Value or Market Cap.
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