A BACKUP WITHOUT BATTERIES - New Active Power system targets UPS market; technology utilizes compressed air and thermal energy to provide power

摘要

For several years now, Active Power Inc., Austin, Texas, has offered its flywheel-based Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) technology as an alternative to battery-based power systems for backup electrical power. The company's Clean-Source flywheel technology uses the kinetic energy from a constantly spinning steel flywheel to supply power for critical loads during a utility failure until a backup generator can be brought online. To date, its Clean-Source system installations represent 150 MW of backup power that have provided nine million hours of field operation.