James Montanio, a system administrator at the Lower Colorado River Authority in Austin, is using flywheel technology and has a 20-second window to kick over to the generator. The system works, but he still has concerns about the amount of time needed for the generator to kick in.
But a benefit of the flywheel is that there is no need for batteries. "It's a little more green," said Montanio. "It's pretty efficient and there's not a lot of waste to it. There's no batteries to throw away."