David Beatty Joins SustainX as Vice President of Engineering

WEST LEBANON, N.H., March 9, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- SustainX, Inc., a New Hampshire-based company developing a transformational technology for utility-scale energy storage using compressed air, has hired David Beatty as its Vice President of Engineering.

(Logo:  http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110309/NE61497LOGO )

Mr. Beatty already has extensive experience in the energy-storage field. While Vice President of Engineering at Active Power in 2005-2007, he was responsible for a 40-person engineering department whose products consisted of high-efficiency, line-interactive, uninterruptible power supplies coupled with battery-free, mechanical energy-storage systems. Power levels ranged from 80 kW to several megawatts.  Of special relevance to SustainX, Mr. Beatty managed the development of Active Power's 85kW CoolAir™ DC product from concept to production. This system utilized compressed air at 4500 psi and thermal energy storage to provide 20 kWh of backup energy to datacenters and other customers requiring an uninterruptible power supply.

Mr. Beatty's other experience areas include variable-nozzle turbocharger design at Garrett Turbocharger Systems (Honeywell), hydraulic system engineering at Caterpillar, and commercial nuclear system engineering at Babcock & Wilcox.  Mr. Beatty has nine U.S. patents to his credit and a Bachelor’s and Master’s in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois.

"Mr. Beatty brings an extraordinary breadth of relevant engineering expertise to SustainX," according to president and CEO Thomas Zarrella.  "We're particularly pleased by his strong track record with compressed-air energy storage and commercialization of hydraulic technologies.  He is a great fit for us, and his proven leadership skills and project management experience will assure that SustainX brings a solid commercial product to market."

About SustainX

SustainX was founded in 2007 and became independent from Dartmouth College in 2008.  It has received funding from the National Science Foundation SBIR Program, the DOE Energy Storage Program, and equity investments from top-tier venture investors Polaris Venture Partners, Cadent Energy Partners, and Rockport Capital.

In SustainX's transformative energy-storage technology, which the company terms ICAES™ (for Isothermal Compressed-Air Energy Storage), electrical energy is transformed by using it to compress air near-isothermally (i.e., at approximately constant temperature), storing the air aboveground in commercial gas storage containers, and expanding it near-isothermally to generate electricity.  No fuel is involved.  The company's competitive advantages stem from its proprietary thermodynamic innovations, a design centered on mature industrial components, and reliance on an ambient-temperature, nontoxic working fluids.

SustainX ICAES is targeting the emerging market for bulk (grid-scale) energy storage being created by the growth in renewable generation, and aims to disrupt costly "peaker" plants that burn natural gas or other polluting fuels.

SOURCE SustainX, Inc.