NEWTON, Mass., July 20 /PRNewswire/ -- General Compression, Inc. ("GC"), a Massachusetts company developing an innovative compressed air energy storage system that burns no fuel when generating electricity, has been selected to receive up to $750,000 in the Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E GRIDS) funding program. The government grant will help accelerate the development of General Compression's Advanced Energy Storage (GCAES™) technology and projects.

"We strongly support ARPA-E's strategic goals, and are impressed with the rigor of the selection process, and speed with which the ARPA-E team has implemented the program. It is an honor for GC to be selected to participate in DOE's transformational energy initiative. The successful development of a scalable and ubiquitous energy storage technology will enable intermittent renewable generators like wind and solar to serve a greater percentage of the U.S. electricity load," said Eric Ingersoll, CEO of General Compression.

GC is currently testing its GCAES™ unit at a facility in Massachusetts and in 2011 will begin building a pilot project in Texas with partner ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP).

About General Compression

Founded in 2006, General Compression, Inc. has made patent-pending advancements in the fields of isothermal compression and expansion to provide utility-scale storage for renewable electricity sources such as wind and solar. GC's near-isothermal compressor/expander module is used to create 2 MW to 1,000 MW, 8 to 300 hour discharge, compressed air energy storage projects. Company founders Eric Ingersoll, David Marcus, and Michael Marcus launched GC with a vision of creating Dispatchable Wind™ to integrate low-cost bulk storage with wind farms to eliminate the issues of intermittent power generation. The company's technology and projects are designed to set clean, domestic wind power on a path to become the dominant electric power generation source in the United States. General Compression raised over $20.9 million in Series A financing in 2010 from investors US Renewables Group, Duke Energy and Northwater Intellectual Property Fund. GC can be found on the web at www.generalcompression.com.

SOURCE General Compression, Inc.