History

The development of what today is Pentadyne Power Corporation began in 1993 as a privately funded entity that sought to create a flywheel-based energy storage device for hybrid-electric automotive applications. Then known as Rosen Motors, founded by Harold and Ben Rosen (of Compaq and Sevin-Rosen Funds), the firm spent more than $24 million to develop and successfully demonstrate the world’s first microturbine/flywheel powered hybrid vehicle prototype in January 1997.

While vehicular applications held promise, stationary uses of flywheel energy storage would prove a more lucrative, more immediate source of product sales. Pentadyne Power Corporation was founded in 1998 to do just that. Flywheels were ideally suited to replace conventional lead-acid batteries commonly used in commercial and industrial continuous power quality applications. Paul Craig (former President and CEO of microturbine manufacturer Capstone Turbine) co-founded Pentadyne Power Corporation and acquired the intellectual property to incorporate the specialized flywheel technology into power quality/reliability solutions.

In 2001, Pentadyne hired its first employees and successfully demonstrated its flywheel technology for such applications. In mid-2002, Pentadyne secured its first venture capital funding – raising over $13 million – and moved to a new production facility. During 2003, Pentadyne successfully completed its beta field trials and, by year’s end, had sold its first production unit to NASA’s Glenn Research Center.

In 2004, the Pentadyne clean energy storage system was been named Product of the Year by Plant Engineering magazine, won the Frost & Sullivan 2005 Technology Innovation Award, earned A Perfect 10  designation in 2006 voted by the readers of Consulting-Specifying Engineer magazine and, as a part of Socomec power certainty solution, earned the Frost & Sullivan Product Innovation of the Year award in 2006.

In 2006, then-CEO/Chairman Paul Craig retired and Pentadyne’s Board brought in Mark McGough to establish Pentadyne as a worldwide leader in clean energy storage systems. An energy industry veteran with a 23-year track record of successes, Mr. McGough has led Pentadyne to new heights, with product launches in the European market, key channel partnerships in the US, EMEA and Asia, the first high volume production of its flywheel systems, and the industry’s first gross-margin-positive product sales. Shipments just in the month of September 2006 exceeded the total volume shipped in 2003 through 2005.

Pentadyne has been recapitalized by its leading group of investors, received the largest order in company history, increased sales backlog to triple-digits – and successfully completed the design and launch of today’s pace-setting next-generation product: the VSS+dc.

In 2007, Pentadyne was designated a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum and its products were named Backup Power Product of the Year by SearchDataCenter.com, Power Conditioning Product of the Year by EC&M magazine and was a Buildings magazine Editors’ Choice Top Product Pick 2007.

Pentadyne has become the OEM supplier of flywheel clean energy storage systems to several of the world’s leading brands of UPS systems, and intends to become the world’s leading supplier of flywheel energy systems. Its systems are used individually and in arrays (a 3.8 MW bank of 20 Pentadyne flywheels is the largest to date) in applications ranging from data center/corporate IT to television broadcast, healthcare, laboratory, financial services, education, utility, electronic gaming, manufacturing, transportation, government and the military. The company is also designated the exclusive supplier of DX-A2 rated (certified for national defense use) flywheel energy storage products to a military procurement contract involving the delivery of more than 500 Pentadyne flywheels for recycling of energy at military facilities nationwide. It is believed to be the world’s largest flywheel supply contract.