"The fragility of the US electrical grid was revealed on February 26, when roughly a million customers in Southern Florida lost power after a substation fault caused a massive blackout."

"Modernizing America’s electricity infrastructure is one of the US Department of Energy’s top priorities."

"European officials and electricity firms were investigating why a supply problem in Germany left about 10 million people in darkness across the continent."

Pnu Power’s products are a novel form of energy storage based on compressed air. The largest single competing technology is Valve Regulated Lead Acid (VRLA) batteries; Pnu Power has a number of distinct advantages when compared to VRLA batteries and other current forms of energy storage:

• The energy store is clean compressed breathing air, not a hazardous chemical mixture;
• Extreme reliability; as long as there is compressed air available Pnu Power will start. When placing a demand on a VRLA battery, there can be many occasions where the energy is not available when required;
• Lower life cycle cost, as Eskom noted in September 2008, “Pnu Power is a viable alternative to conventional battery storage for standby power in utility systems”; and
• Pnu  Power  is  not  adversely  affected  by  extremes  of temperature whereas, in particular, heat is very damaging to VRLA batteries and, as a result, VRLA batteries need significant  amounts  of  expensive  infrastructure  and  air conditioning - Pnu Power does not.

Currently Pnu Power has CE marked products available in DC or AC variants targeting power ranges from 600 watts up to 10 kW. In addition, the company is testing its technology up to a 50 kW system which will enable the company to enter into the higher power data and communications UPS markets.

 

The large global markets that the business is targeting include:

• Utility switching;
• Telecommunications;
• Mobile radio;
• Utility network support;
• Specialist UPS for industrial applications;
• Railway signalling; and
• Data centre backup.

 

US  aerospace  and  defence  company,  P&E Automation Inc, orders Pnu Power compressed air energy systems worth up to US$380,000.

“We are delighted to be working with Energetix Pnu Power on this project, and to offer this unique  solution  for  clean,  reliable  back-up power and peak shaving to the US DOE and our aerospace industry client.”

 

Telecom Italia, one of Europe’s largest telecom providers, orders a Pnu Power compressed air energy system as part of an evaluation exercise to validate, in a real-life application, the increased reliability and reduced maintenance that a Pnu Power unit delivers compared to battery-based systems.

“We are pleased to have introduced this new and exciting technology to Telecom Italia to demonstrate the improved reliability it will bring to their system.”