VYCON's "Green" Energy Storage Flywheel Systems Selected to Protect Austin Energy's Control Center

LOS ANGELES, CA--(Marketwire - Feb 1, 2012) - VYCON (www.vyconenergy.com), a designer and manufacturer of environmentally friendly, high-speed energy storage flywheel systems, today announced that Austin Energy (www.austinenergy.com), the nation's ninth largest community-owned electric utility, has chosen to protect its new Control Center with clean backup power from VYCON. With 400,000 customers and a population of almost one million, Austin Energy has one of the nation's most comprehensive residential and commercial energy efficiency programs. The 190,000-square-foot Control Center operates the utility's data center and operates the utility's grid including the switching of utility grid quadrants. VYCON's environmentally friendly VDC-XE flywheel systems -- totaling 4.8 megawatts -- will protect the Control Center from storms and /or other events that may compromise electrical power.

Instead of using traditional battery-based uninterruptible power systems (UPSs) for its new center, Austin Energy chose flywheels in order to increase power backup reliability. Seeking a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver rating for the new center, the flywheels offer a clean, environmentally friendly alternative to toxic lead-acid batteries. By removing UPS batteries from the power infrastructure, downtime, frequent battery maintenance, replacement and expensive cooling of the batteries have been eliminated for the next 20 years -- the rated lifetime of the flywheels.

"Flywheel UPSs are rapidly becoming the defacto choice for power protection when reliability is the key concern," said Dann McKeraghan, sales and marketing vice president for VYCON. "This, coupled with their environmental advantages, and you have a win-win value proposition. We're pleased that our VDC-XE flywheel systems met Austin Energy's power protection requirements and sustainability/green initiatives for the utility's critical Control Center."

VYCON's VDC-XE (Xtended Energy) supplies up to 300kW of DC power within a single cabinet. For longer run times and higher power capacities, the UL listed VDC models can be easily paralleled without special communications links or control systems for supporting megawatt load applications. For extended power outages, the VDC will provide ride-through protection to seamlessly transfer to a standby engine generator and provide continuous uninterrupted power.

Tested and compatible with all major brands of three-phase UPS systems and available from VYCON's global channel partners, the VDC units feature a 20-year life and minimal maintenance requirements. Featuring optimized power electronics for significantly improved power density, the energy storage systems replace traditional lead-acid backup batteries used with UPS systems -- providing users with a smarter and greener approach to power protection.

Providing clean ride-through backup power that is fast, predictable and seamless, VYCON's flywheels offer a lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) than traditional battery-reliant UPS systems offering reliable and environmentally friendly on-demand power.

January 2012 marks the milestone of 500 VYCON flywheel systems shipped, representing a record 7.5 million discharge and recharge cycles over 3.5 million run hours. This is notable as VYCON's flywheels are often deployed in difficult power environments that call on VYCON's flywheels to discharge and quickly recharge every two minutes.

For more information on VYCON's flywheel solutions, visit www.vyconenergy.com or call 714-386-3800. To see VYCON's flywheels in action visit VYCON's YouTube Channel at: http://www.youtube.com/user/VYCONEnergy. Follow VYCON on Twitter at www.twitter.com/vyconenergy.

About VYCON
Founded in 2002, VYCON is an innovator in the design and manufacture of advanced flywheel energy storage systems. VYCON's flywheels are used around the world to provide a highly reliable, cost-effective and "green" energy storage solution for a variety of mission-critical applications. Tested and compatible with three-phase UPS systems from all major UPS companies worldwide, VYCON's patented technology enables its flywheel products to be the most reliable, longest lasting and virtually maintenance free systems on the market today. Recognized as one of America's fastest growing companies on the Inc. 500 list for the past two years, VYCON is a leader in the Power Quality marketplace providing clean uninterrupted power for data centers, healthcare, mobile power, industrial, broadcast and gaming applications.

As a result of VYCON's patented technologies and integration engineering expertise, VYCON's flywheels can be packaged for energy re-cycling applications like port container cranes, traction power in rail as well as for wind power and smart grid energy storage. Key to VYCON's flywheel superiority and dependability is its ability to discharge and recharge frequently and continuously. VYCON's fleet of VDC, VDC-XE and REGEN systems have recorded seven and half million discharge and recharge cycles in very demanding applications.

For more information on VYCON's innovative green power solutions, contact VYCON at 714-386-3800 or visit VYCON's web site at: www.vyconenergy.com.