WINDSOR, Colo. - Ice Energy has announced that its installed base of Ice Bear energy storage systems have successfully recorded more than 5 million hours of cumulative field run time. The technology works by storing energy as ice in the evening and using the ice for cooling during the day, shifting air conditioning energy use to off-peak periods thereby saving energy and lowering utility bills.

Ice Energy said that, since 2005, the company and its utility partners have installed and operated Ice Bear distributed energy storage units to shift building energy use from peak to off-peak hours - when electricity generation is more efficient and less expensive - across a wide range of climates and geographies throughout the United States and Canada.

In logging the 5 million hours, the systems have been successfully operating on a wide range of commercial, retail, government, and educational facilities with uptime in excess of 99 percent, said the company. These include major national retailers, restaurants and fast-food outlets, convenience stores, data centers, libraries, fire and police stations, schools, light commercial and manufacturing facilities, municipal buildings, an airport, and a motion picture studio.

When aggregated and deployed at scale, Ice Energy said its Ice Bear energy storage system represents a sustainable new energy solution equivalent to thousands of megawatts of clean peak power for utilities, enabling them to deliver reliable, competitively priced electric service to their customers in a sustainable, environmentally-sensitive manner.

The company recently announced an agreement with the Southern California Public Power Authority (SCPPA) to implement a 53 megawatt energy storage project utilizing Ice Energy technology. The project, which represents the deployment of Ice Bear systems on thousands of locations throughout Southern California, is expected to reduce California’s peak electrical demand by as much as 64 gigawatt hours annually, saving enough on-peak energy to power the equivalent of 10,000 average homes.

For more information, visit www.ice-energy.com.

Publication date: 10/11/2010