UNION CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Daniel Bakholdin has been named chief technology officer for Amber Kinetics, Inc., the manufacturer and developer of projects using its innovative, cost-effective flywheel energy storage solutions. He will be responsible for advancing the commercialization of the company’s safe, sustainable, four-hour discharge duration steel flywheel technology.
“We are very pleased to announce the newest member of the Amber Kinetics senior management team,” noted Ed Chiao, chief executive officer. “Daniel has been in the flywheel and turbo machinery industry for more than 20 years and has shipped over 1,000 commercial flywheels. He brings major bona fides to our flywheel commercialization efforts.”
Bakholdin has 26 years of experience in engineering and management. He co-founded Pentadyne Power Corp., where he served as vice president of mechanical engineering and later oversaw production engineering as vice president of sustaining engineering. Pentadyne, now Powerthru, develops and manufactures flywheel energy storage systems for power quality and power recycling applications. Bakholdin invented or co-invented much of the technology utilized in Powerthru’s machines.
“Having been primarily involved in energy storage since graduating college, I am very excited to join Amber Kinetics, which has taken proven flywheel energy storage to the next level,” said Bakholdin. “This company has unlimited promise because of the many storage solutions it offers utilities and the renewable energy-based grid of the future.”
Prior to joining Amber Kinetics, Bakholdin was a consultant to a range of power and energy tech start-ups. Concurrently, he served as director of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies’ magnetic propulsion and levitation development laboratory.
From 2012-14, he was chief operating officer of Rotonix USA. Rotonix developed a 1MW energy storage flywheel system for power quality and recycling applications. Bakholdin orchestrated the company’s U.S.-based R&D and Rotating Group production facility. He also oversaw the establishment and tooling of Rotonix China’s production facility in Beijing.
From 2008-2011, Bakholdin was chief operating officer at Advanced Turbine Designs, a company developing a 5kW microturbine gen-set for distributed power generation and residential combined heat and power applications. He is also a co-founder and former president of Quadradyne LP (acquired by Pentadyne), the HEV project manager at Capstone Turbine Corp., and manager of design engineering and testing at Rosen Motors, an innovative developer of flywheel power systems.
A member of the American Vacuum Society and the Society of Automotive Engineers, Bakholdin earned a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.
For information, visit www.amberkinetics.com or call Bill Barnes at (510) 474-1000 x708.
About Amber Kinetics
Headquartered in Union City, CA, Amber Kinetics was founded in anticipation of the enormous worldwide demand for competitively priced, safe, environmentally sustainable, multi-hour energy storage. The company is vertically integrated, manufacturing its technology and developing energy storage projects using its flywheel system – a common model in the PV solar industry.
