Beacon Power in Tyngsboro, Mass., which makes great big flywheels to act as power storage for utility companies, has gotten a $43 million federal loan guarantee, to build a manufacturing facility in New York state. As explained in the Cnet story (read it here), the important job that the system performs is frequency regulation:
Right now, [...]

Beacon Powen in Tyngsboro, Mass., is developing utility-scale flywheels to act as short-term energy storage for the power grid: When utilities are generating more power than needed (e.g., when it’s sunny or windy, if you’ve got alt-energy facilities) this is used to spin the flywheels, when an extra burst of electricity is needed (e.g., when [...]