NYSERDA, Northern Power and Equity Office Announce Completion of
Combined Heat and Power (CHP) System at 717 Fifth Avenue, New York City
Tuesday October 10, 9:45 am ET
Ceremony Being Held October 12, 2006 from 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Eastern
NEW YORK, Oct. 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Northern Power, a
subsidiary of Distributed Energy Systems Corp. (Nasdaq: DESC - News),
the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA),
and Equity Office, the nation's largest publicly held owner of office
buildings, announce the completion of a new $4.1 million, 1.6-megawatt
combined heat and power (CHP) system at 717 Fifth Avenue in Midtown
Manhattan. The system, which is the first of its kind to be
synchronously interconnected to the critical Midtown network grid of
Consolidated Edison Company of New York (Con Edison) handles 60% of the
450,000-square-foot building's electric usage, and 65% of its cooling
and heating needs. A recognition event is being held in the lobby of
717 Fifth Avenue on October 12, 2006 from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Eastern, and will feature a tour of the system.
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The system, which was designed and built by Northern Power on a turnkey
basis, operates in parallel with the utility's grid during peak and
mid-peak hours, and provides nearly two-thirds of the building's peak
summer demand. The project was supported by a $745,000 grant from
NYSERDA.
Although its primary function is to increase the building's energy
efficiency, the system can also be configured to provide backup power
to keep the building operational during an extended power outage, such
as the one experienced by office workers during the August 2003
blackout.
"We believe that the 717 Fifth Avenue project will serve as an
outstanding example to similar facilities that a successful
interconnection of on-site generating assets with the local network
grid is possible and that such projects will have a positive impact on
relieving some of the load currently straining the grid," said Peter R.
Smith, President of NYSERDA. "In addition, such projects hold the
promise of benefiting the environment through dramatically improved
energy efficiency."
Equity Office, Northern Power, and NYSERDA consider this to be a
flagship project demonstrating the ability of large office buildings to
attain both interdependence with and independence from utility grids,
even in the heart of major metropolitan areas like New York City.
"Several years ago Equity Office launched a dedicated, comprehensive,
and aggressive energy program to reduce overall energy consumption and
to increase energy efficiency at buildings throughout our portfolio,"
said Paul Saccone, vice president of Equity Office's corporate
engineering and energy investment group. "EOP's Total Energy Initiative
focuses on energy monitoring, energy investment, procurement,
conservation, and education and training.
About NYSERDA
The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA)
is a public benefit corporation created in 1975 by the New York State
Legislature. NYSERDA administers the New York Energy $mart(SM) program,
which is designed to support certain public benefit programs during the
transition to a more competitive electricity market. Some 2,700
projects in 40 programs are funded by a charge on the electricity
transmitted and distributed by the State's investor-owned utilities.
The New York Energy $mart(SM) program provides energy efficiency
services, including those directed at the low- income sector, research
and development, and environmental protection activities.
About Northern Power
Northern Power designs, builds and installs reliable power solutions
for commercial, industrial, government, and military customers. The
company also conducts research and development in the areas of
renewable energy, distributed generation and hydrogen technology. Since
its founding in 1974, Northern has installed over 800 systems in 45
countries on all seven continents. Northern Power Systems, Inc. is
headquartered in Waitsfield, Vermont and employs 100 people with
engineering, fulfillment, and customer- support capabilities. The
company is a wholly owned operating subsidiary of Distributed Energy
Systems Corp. For more information, visit www.northernpower.com.
About Equity Office
Equity Office Properties Trust (NYSE: EOP - News), operating through
its various subsidiaries and affiliates, is the nation's largest
publicly held office building owner and manager with a total office
portfolio consisting of whole or partial interests in 586 buildings
comprising 109.6 million square feet in 16 states and the District of
Columbia. Equity Office has an ownership presence in 24 Metropolitan
Statistical Areas (MSAs) and in 101 submarkets, enabling it to provide
a wide range of office solutions for local, regional and national
customers. For more company information, visit the Equity Office
website at http://www.equityoffice.com .
About Distributed Energy Systems Corp.
Distributed Energy Systems Corp. (Nasdaq: DESC - News) creates and
delivers products and solutions to the emerging decentralized energy
marketplace, giving users greater control over their energy cost,
quality, and reliability. As the parent company of Proton Energy
Systems, Inc. (www.protonenergy.com) and Northern Power Systems, Inc.,
Distributed Energy Systems delivers a combination of practical,
ready-today energy solutions and the solid business platforms for
capitalizing on the changing energy landscape. For more information,
visit www.distributed-energy.com.
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Source: Distributed Energy Systems Corp.
Medis Technologies Chairman Provides Updates of Sales and Production
Programs for Medis 24/7 Power Pack
Publication Date:10-October-2006
09:30 PM US Eastern Timezone
Source:FuelCellWorks
NEW YORK, NY-- Medis Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ:MDTL ) today announced a
letter to the Company's shareholders from its Chairman and CEO, Robert
K. Lifton. The letter is included in its entirety below: Dear Fellow
Shareholders,
Yesterday afternoon we held a previously announced meeting at which our
President, Jacob Weiss, and our Chief Technology Officer, Gennadi
Finkelshtain, presented to invited guests Medis' new programs for
developing fuel cells for laptop computers and standby power for homes
and offices. Those were the programs that were presented last week to
OEMs and others in those fields and were discussed in detail in our
press release on October 5, 2006. At yesterday's meeting, I also had
the opportunity to discuss the state of Medis' programs for marketing
and producing the 24/7 Power Pack. I believe you will be interested in
the information that was conveyed in yesterday's meeting.
Sales Programs
Our sales program is moving forward at a brisk pace. Our short-term
focus is on sales of Power Pack products to come off our semi-automated
line based in Israel once we have completed certification by the
Underwriter Laboratories (UL) certification. We are already in the
process of choosing from a number of interested retail establishments
where are the best outlets to offer Power Packs in order to achieve the
maximum exposure. Once the Power Packs are available for sale to the
public, there are a number of media opportunities that become available
from which we will seek to benefit. We are planning all of this
activity to continue to build up demand for Power Packs from our fully
automated line currently being constructed by Ismeca, to be placed in
Ireland and operated by Celestica, as discussed below.
We are fortunate that our sales program has been helped by three
current developments. The first relates to the continued additions to
the capabilities being added to mobile devices. Increasingly,
enterprise market customers are expanding their use of smart phones
carrying sophisticated software like Microsoft's Windows mobile 5.0 or
Symbion. As cited in The Economist (December 23-29, 2006 Technology
Review, p.38) according to the Gartner Group "some 100 million
smartphones will be sold this year." This is consistent with
Microsoft's stated expectation that its software will be in about 100
million smart phones by the end of 2007. This is a market that we
believe is most needful of our 24/7 Power Pack to provide the power
required to achieve the productivity desired from these devices. This
conclusion has been fully borne out by meetings of our marketing staff
with representatives of mobile service providers and other companies
active in that field.
We also regularly read about multimedia devices in the consumer markets
offering added capabilities in music and video and, recently, on
location through GPS. The increase in the availability of content on
multimedia devices, particularly through social networking sites like
MySpace and YouTube, has resulted in more viewers. This inevitably is
leading to programs to deliver advertising to those viewers. However,
as I pointed out in a speech I made earlier this month at an Adforum
conference before a number of leaders in the advertising agency field:
"One major matter that has not been discussed seriously is the power to
keep the mobile devices functioning long enough to allow the user to
access the content, thereby being exposed to the advertising and also
use the mobile device for the purpose it was originally purchased,
namely to make calls as a cell phone, or to listen to music, for
example."
The second factor is the recent spate of reported battery explosions
and other battery problems which may imply that the lithium ion battery
used in these devices has been pushed as far as it is safe. Experts
tell us that consumers cannot expect power for devices from lithium ion
batteries to be expanded significantly so that the consumer cannot look
to more powerful lithium ion batteries to remedy the shortfall in
battery life.
The third factor is that just recently we have seen one of the most
advanced chargers come on the market from Energizer using two of its
most powerful and expensive disposable lithium batteries, which
reflects the market need for portable power.
We believe that our 24/7 Power Pack uniquely offers the ability to
provide 20 watt/hours to charge a broad variety of hand-held devices,
including smartphones, and does so safely, with no discernable heat and
at an attractive cost model. Happily, for disposal purposes, it is also
more environmentally green than batteries which have metal in them. I
might add, too, that based on public disclosures about the status of
other fuel cell efforts, we are not aware of any that appear to be able
to compete with the Medis 24/7 Power Pack.
As you know, our strategy has been to place the Medis 24/7 Power Packs
in the hands of hundreds of users so that they can experience them,
first hand. We believe that this process has served us quite well with
the result that some of the world's largest service providers, software
companies, OEMs and retail outlets are already expressing interest in
becoming customers for our Power Pack when it is ready for sale. Our
job now is to translate all of this interest into concrete action that
will allow us to develop a clear picture of what we can expect in
purchases from these sources. Based on our conversations, we believe an
important catalyst for orders will be completion of the UL
certification. We have heard from a number of our potential customers
that they, too, would like to carry out testing when we are ready and
completed UL tests. As we have reported, we have started the UL process
already and Mr. Finkelshtain has reported to me that our technology is
fully ready for the final stages of testing which we hope can be
completed next month.
The Fully Automated Line and Production Program
As we move closer to large scale production, the elements of our
production line and production time table come into much clearer focus.
First, it helps to visualize what is involved in our fully automated
production line. This line consists of the fuel facility and three
assembly zones with a total of fourteen stations, connected by a
conveyor system. If it were stretched out straight would be 180 meters
long (164 yards) -- the length of nearly two football fields. It is
designed to be capable of producing 1.5 million Power Packs a month,
operating on four shifts with only ten operators per shift. Clearly,
one of our key objectives in developing the automation program for this
line was to sharply reduce any reliance on people power.
In parallel to Ismeca constructing the fully automated line, we have
other contractors constructing other important high volume feeder lines
to the automated line -- like the fuel production and electrode framing
lines. I recently reviewed the status of all of this development with
the CEO of Ismeca and Mr. Finkelshtain. The timetable they have
presented calls for having 40% of the line completed next week, 90% of
the line completed by the end of November, when the dry run will also
begin; and having the line completed and ready for validation by the
end of 2006. On this schedule, validation of the line will begin in
January of 2007. Validation and training of Selestica's personnel is
expected to be completed in the second half of March 2007. At that
point, we have two options. If there is a compelling reason, for
example an immediate customer need, that line could go into operation
to produce about 300,000 to 500,000 Power Packs during the next month.
A more likely scenario is that the line will be disassembled (estimate
one week) and transported by ship (estimate three weeks) to Celestica's
facility in Ireland where the line will be reassembled and retested by
Celestica and then put into operation. That process should allow the
line to go on-stream in May 2007.
During this period, we will continue to operate our semi-automated line
in Israel capable of producing 30,000 Power Packs per month. Although
the cost per Power Pack on that line is higher, it may lend itself to
certain customers who are willing to pay more for immediate
availability or special orders.
More Powerful Fuel Cells for Laptop Computers and Stand-by Power for
Small Offices and Homes
As noted above, our October 5th press release discussed the
presentation by Mr. Finkelshtain, together with Mr. Weiss, of the
programs for developing refuelable cartridge fuel cells for laptop
computers and one to two kilowatt refuelable fuel cells for standby
power for small offices and homes. These programs offer valuable
opportunities for our Company to expand its capabilities to address
areas where the need and demand for efficient power are pressing. For
years, laptop computer OEMs have been looking for a solution to power
requirements that is small, attractively priced and does not create
significant heat. As for the one to two kilowatt product, that could be
an attractive product for China and India as well as countries in
Africa and many other parts of the world which sorely need an efficient
and inexpensive power solution for their citizenry. And, of course,
standby power for homes and offices in more affluent countries, like
ours, is clearly growing with the increasing pressure on electrical
grids to keep up with power requirements.
I hope you share with me the excitement of our Company's progress as we
move forward to placing our 24/7 Power Pack on the market and start to
develop future generations of fuel cell products based on our platform
technology.
Sincerely,
Robert K. Lifton
Chairman & CEO
Eeyore wrote:
> lkgeo1 wrote:
> > NYSERDA, Northern Power and Equity Office Announce Completion of
> > Combined Heat and Power (CHP) System at 717 Fifth Avenue, New York City
> > Tuesday October 10, 9:45 am ET
> > Ceremony Being Held October 12, 2006 from 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Eastern
> You've traded some of your hydrogen stocks for some with a future have you ?
>
> Graham
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> Combined Heat and Power (CHP) System at 717 Fifth Avenue, New York City
> Tuesday October 10, 9:45 am ET
> Ceremony Being Held October 12, 2006 from 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Eastern