Beacon Power Corp. (fka BCONQ)

[mrholty]

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.