After going through a somewhat tumultuous time with a change of leadership at HQ, Altairnano now has a solid success it can point to. A two-megawatt, 500 kWh battery system of its making has been put through some serious testing by its strategic partner, power company AES, along with independent contractor, KEMA, and has emerged successful. The battery came with HVAC, a DC to AC converter and control systems, and was hooked up to an Indianapolis Power & Light (IPL) sub-station where the series of tests were conducted.

Technicians were able to charge and discharge each 1-megawatt component of the energy storage system on their own as well as in parallel many times over a 15-minute period. They also did "frequency regulation", which involves switching the batteries from charge to discharge modes every four seconds for four hours. These capabilities are very handy when it comes to performing grid "load leveling". The use of the battery to help store intermittent energy sources, such as solar and wind, were noted by Chris Shelton, Director of Energy Storage Development at AES. "Fast-responding, high-efficiency energy storage systems such as these will create a more resilient grid and allow for increased use of variable generating sources such as wind and solar." To get a more detailed look at the testing and results, check the validation report summary (PDF) by KEMA as well as the Altairnano press release after the break.

[Source: Altairnano via Green Car Congress]

Altairnano has had the spot light thrown on it recently as a result of an agreement between Electrovaya and Altairnano partner, Phoenix Motorcars. It is in this environment of speculation that they released their 2008 1st quarter earnings report. In a continuance of recent performance, they reported a slightly reduced revenue of $1.07 million and moderately increased expenditures. Net loss for the quarter was $8.29 million. So that's not so good, right?

While it definitely wasn't an outstanding financial performance, interim president Terry Copeland sounded relatively upbeat during the conference call with investors that broke the numbers to them. Now stored on their website, the call began with talk of one of Altairnano's brighter prospects, their deal with AES and the near completion of, so far, very successful testing. He stated the 2 megawatt battery system could move power around at a 4C rate or about 250kwh in 15 minutes. That certainly sounds impressive. In fact, throughout the talk, which also touched on the Phoenix Motorcars relationship, Copeland stressed the superior ability of their battery's power density as well as their extreme temperature tolerance. In an attempt to calm fears on the financial front he discussed their near-term goal of reducing the cash burn rate.

So what of the future? Perhaps not too bad if the AES relationship begins to bear some significant sales fruit. Their Navy contract also holds good earning potential. Mentioned briefly during questioning from investors was news of possible HEV applications, including a bus. You can listen to the conference call by clicking here and read the complete Q1 report for yourself after the jump.

[Source: Altairnano]