The renewable energy-focused unit also took credit for securing revenues for a sister subsidiary — Quality Bending and Fabrication — of about $259,000.
Company officials said 79 percent of the Powin Energy's total revenues for 2011 were earned in the fourth quarter.
The uptick in sales, which appears to be carrying over into the first quarter, officials say, comes from an emphasis on energy storage as Powin Energy narrows its focus to its battery products.
The company still manufactures fluorescent lighting and wind energy components but has recently honed in on its line of lithium-ion batteries and aggressively marketed the scalable technology.
Powin Energy has not posted a profit yet, and has been a drag on parent company Powin Corp., which manufactures a range of products from gun safes to fitness equipment. But Powin Energy officials say its backing by the 20-year-old global manufacturer and access to Powin Corp. production facilities on three continents is giving the subsidiary an ability to move quickly into energy storage.
Leveraging a partnership with Shandong RealForce Enterprises Co. Ltd, which supplies battery cells, Powin Energy has marketed the technology paired with its own software.
The units range from a 2-kilowatt-hour capacity battery to full utility-scale storage and Powin Energy's software provides an interface to control the battery systems via the web. The systems are targeted for use in the electric vehicle sector, in solar and wind energy storage, in energy storage for telecommunications and in power stations.
"There is an opportunity now in the energy storage business to be a leader," said Mike Morse, vice president of operations for Powin Energy. "The window is now and we are trying to market ourselves as one of the industry leaders in scalable energy storage."
Morse said the company will make a strong showing in the first quarter of 2012 with an announcement of its first major energy storage project pending.
"We are close to signing an agreement to provide energy storage solutions to a major university research department" in Australia, he said.
Powin Energy is also scheduled to receive grant money in February to produce five batteries for buses for a consultant to a major transit provider in the United States, a project that is generating interest from other transit providers.
"We think that the transit industry is really going to be a good market for us," said Morse. "We think once there is success with this first one, the others that are waiting will be a pretty good windfall."
The 2011 revenues celebrated at Powin did not reach the 10 percent projections officials estimated Powin Energy could add to Powin Corp's annual revenue this year, or about $4.8 million. Powin Corp. reported a sharp drop in first-half profits last year as investments in Powin Energy and other new business drove expenses.
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