Urenco's kinetic energy storage system is now commercially viable: from its initial proof of principle in a demonstration for London Underground in 2000, Urenco Power Technologies' kinetic energy storage system has become a commercially viable energy storage system, and is now in use on the traction power networks of a number of mass transit applications - LUL - UPT - Kess - Power Supply Innovations

International Railway Journal, Feb, 2004

Faced with this dilemma, RATP chose UPT Kess technology because of its ability to provide the required voltage support and its compact size. The units will be installed alongside existing equipment and continue to provide supplementary voltage support when the refurbishment project is completed. RATP expects 99.8% reliability from the installation.

The UPT Kess has a maximum useable energy content of 3kWh that can be configured to give a range of power outputs with various durations. This is the feature that attracted NDK (on behalf of JR East) to the UPT Kess technology.

JR East has a range of diesel generator uninterrupted power supply systems of various types and age which provide emergency power to escalators and turnstiles on stations. To ensure that in all these locations there is sufficient time for more than one attempt to cold-start the diesel generator set, JR East requires ride-through of 50kW for 3 minutes. NDK initially undertook a nine-month technical evaluation of the UPT Kess to demonstrate its reliability prior to embarking on a phased deployment across its network this year.