Active Power Sells 'Power in a Box' Containers

Active Power, Inc. (ACPW) has a new customer for PowerHouse, its containerized power systems. Tesco PLC, one of Europe's largest retailers, has ordered two PowerHouse containers for a data center north of London, where it will protect the facility against power sags, fluctuations and outages. The systems are expected to be delivered in the second half of 2008.

Each PowerHouse container system includes one CleanSource UPS 1500iC system, switchgear, a 1900 kVA diesel generator and fuel tanks. The containers will be positioned beside Tesco's existing data center facility. Both containers will be manufactured offsite, which will ensure minimal disruption at the Tesco facility and pose less risk to day-to-day business operations.

"Tesco needed to increase their power capacity onsite, but is space constrained which is common, particularly among data centre operators in the UK," said Jim Murphy, vice president of Sales EMEA for Active Power. "Our containerized system aligns extremely well with what Tesco is trying to accomplish at their data centre facility and also company wide. The two UPS systems Tesco will deploy shall save enough energy to power 196 average households and displace as much as 1,586 tons of CO2 emissions each year."

Active Power's flywheel UPS systems lend themselves very well to containerization, as the system only consumes about one quarter the footprint as compared to a conventional battery based system and can operate in an environment with wide temperatures swings (0 to 40 degrees Celsius.

Active Power has shipped more than 1,700 flywheels in UPS systems since it was founded in 1992.