Benzinga | Jan 11, 2021 08:27AM EST

Capstone Turbine Receives Several Orders for Upgrades at Six Long-Term Care Facilities in California

Capstone Turbine Corporation (www.capstoneturbine.com) (NASDAQ:CPST), the world's leading clean technology manufacturer of microturbine energy systems, announced several orders for eight C65 microturbines for six long-term care facilities located throughout California. Each facility will include 65 kilowatts (kW) to 130 kW of clean and reliable microturbine power. Cal Microturbine, Capstone's exclusive distributor in California, Hawaii, and Nevada and non-exclusive in Washington and Oregon (www.calmicroturbine.com), secured the orders, which are expected to be commissioned in late 2021.

The eight natural gas-fueled microturbines will be equipped with Capstone's integrated heat recovery modules (HRM) to improve on-site efficiency. The innovative combined heat and power (CHP) solution allows the customer to capture the thermal energy from the microturbine exhaust and utilize it for domestic hot water and heating. In addition, the microturbines will provide baseload power for all of the facilities and operate in dual-mode, which allows the customer to operate independently in case of a grid outage or parallel with the grid in a load sharing capacity.

"We have hundreds of installations globally in hospitals and hotels, but long-term care facilities have been a somewhat limited niche for us, yet certainly one that warrants our attention as they have similar critical power and resiliency needs to healthcare and hospitality and continue to grow," said Darren Jamison, President and Chief Executive Officer of Capstone Turbine Corporation. "US Census reports indicate that by 2030, almost one-fifth of the U.S. population will be of retirement age," added Mr. Jamison.

"Healthcare and hospitality customers are ideal candidates for Cal Microturbine's 'back-up power with a payback' microturbines systems," said Marc Rouse, Executive Vice President of Sales of Cal Microturbine. "We expect to see a lot more activity in these verticals as cost reduction and business continuity are prioritized," added Mr. Rouse.

Capstone microturbines are often chosen for their short payback, reliability and efficiency. During normal operation with the grid present, the microturbines will offset expensive utility power and provide hot water to offset boiler gas usage. In the event of an extended utility outage, the systems will automatically switch to stand-alone mode and provide short or long-term reliable, clean power.

Capstone was identified as a cost-effective, low-emission, and field-proven reliable cogeneration solution in this size range (sub 100 to 250kW). Because uptime was of critical importance for this application, the customer purchased a Capstone 10-year Factory Protection Plan (FPP) that includes access to Cal Microturbine's highly valued premium service network with a demonstrated 98% C65 ICHP fleet uptime.

"Cal Microturbine's extensive investment in service talent and inventory and our exceptional fleet uptimes made Capstone Turbine the technology front runner for these projects and secured 10-year Factory Protection Plans for these projects," concluded Kenda Brown, President of Cal Microturbine.

Capstone's innovative Factory Protection Plan is a comprehensive maintenance program designed to give financial peace of mind to Capstone customers by providing product life cycle costs at a fixed rate for both scheduled and unscheduled maintenance for the life of the microturbine system. Additionally, the recently updated FPP protects microturbine customers from potentially dramatic future increases in life cycle costs associated with changes in replacement spare parts pricing, commodity price increases, import tariffs, and interest rate changes.