Pentadyne Flywheel Ensures Continuous Power Quality at San José International Airport

Pentadyne Power Corporation (www.pentadyne.com) -- the world's leading commercial manufacturer of clean energy storage systems using advanced composite flywheel technology -- announced that its system is in use with an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) system at California's Norman Y. Mineta San José International Airport.

Norman Y. Mineta San José International Airport, airport code SJC, serves the Silicon Valley and Greater San Francisco Bay Area. The airport moves about 30,000 passengers per day, nearly 11 million per year.

UPS systems that protect critical equipment from power interruptions commonly use dozens of hazardous lead-acid batteries. These store the energy needed to feed protected loads in the event of utility power fluctuations or complete outages. Lead-acid batteries, however, are commonly acknowledged as the weakest link in any continuous power quality system.

Pentadyne systems are far more reliable than the lead-acid batteries commonly used with UPSs. In most installations, Pentadyne systems are deployed instead of problematic UPS battery banks to ride-through brief power disturbances or a complete outage. In the latter case, the Pentadyne system "holds up" the DC bus of the UPS until a backup generator starts and can accept a gradual hand-off of the UPS-protected loads.

At San José International Airport, however, the Pentadyne system is operating in parallel with a redundant set of UPS batteries. In this configuration, the Pentadyne system is the first line of defense against all power issues, isolating the batteries from any such events. The only time the batteries would ever be used is in the unlikely event of a problem with the Pentadyne system or the backup generator.

"Battery banks are notoriously problematic in terms of reliability, temperature control and maintenance needs," said Frank DeLattre, Pentadyne's Senior Vice President of Sales & Service. "The Pentadyne system at San José International essentially does all the work that a battery bank is supposed to do, but does so with far greater reliability, far lower operating cost, much higher uptime availability and near-zero maintenance needs."

Those were the primary reasons that the San José International Airport chose to use the Pentadyne flywheel solution over other alternatives.

Pentadyne President & CEO Mark McGough said, "Norman Y. Mineta San José International Airport brought their Pentadyne system online right after the 4th of July. After all the recent news of power interruptions at other California airports, I know that I and all the employees here at Pentadyne feel a lot more secure about our travel plans in and out of the Greater Bay Area."

About Pentadyne Power Corporation

An ISO-9001-certified company, Los Angeles-based Pentadyne manufactures flywheel energy storage systems that have a fully magnetically levitated carbon-fiber cylinder. Pentadyne energy storage is used with UPS systems at industrial, commercial, hospital and military facilities in North America and abroad. Pentadyne flywheels are the world's most energy efficient, using 90% less standby power than other commercial production flywheel systems. Pentadyne systems are sold by several of the world's leading UPS manufacturers to provide an economic, near-zero maintenance, lightweight and environmentally sound back-up power solution without any of the hazardous chemicals or safety and reliability concerns of lead-acid batteries.

Editors:

Flywheel product details are at:

http://pentadyne.com/Pentadyne+VSS++Brochure.pdf