Beacon Power Wins $43M DOE Loan

Wade Roush7/9/09

Tyngsboro, MA-based flywheel energy storage company Beacon Power (NASDAQ: BCON) announced last week that the U.S. Department of Energy has extended a loan guarantee amounting to $43 million. The loan will provide more than half of the financing for a planned 20-megawatt commercial flywheel energy storage facility to be built in Stephentown, NY. But the loan comes at a high cost: the Business Insider reports this week that Beacon Power spent three years and $1 million on the application process.

Wade Roush is Xconomy's chief correspondent and editor of Xconomy San Francisco. You can e-mail him at wroush@xconomy.com or follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/wroush.