This project has advanced the commercial readiness of flywheel technology by enhancing the product design, confirming performance and reliability, advancing manufacturing processes, validating the safety criteria, and demonstrating the management of a multi-unit array.
The 20-megawatt system marks a milestone in flywheel energy storage technology, as similar systems have only been applied in testing and small-scale applications. The system utilizes 200 carbon fiber flywheels levitated in a vacuum chamber. The flywheels absorb grid energy and can steadily discharge 1-megawatt of electricity for 15 minutes.
This project explored flywheel energy storage R&D to reach commercial viability for utility scale energy storage. This required advancing the design, manufacturing capability, system cost, storage capacity, efficiency, reliability, safety, and system level operation of flywheel energy storage technology.
What is a flywheel storage system?
The flywheel system offers an alternative. Beacon Power reports that 18-megawatts from the new flywheel storage system are already online, and the system will be operating at full capacity by the end of June. Flywheels are an ingenious way to store energy. Essentially, a giant rotor is levitated and spun in a chamber by way of magnets.
Are flywheel-based hybrid energy storage systems based on compressed air energy storage?
While many papers compare different ESS technologies, only a few research, studies design and control flywheel-based hybrid energy storage systems. Recently, Zhang et al. present a hybrid energy storage system based on compressed air energy storage and FESS.
Thanks to the unique advantages such as long life cycles, high power density, minimal environmental impact, and high power quality such as fast response and voltage stability, the flywheel/kinetic energy storage system (FESS) is gaining attention recently.
How do flywheels store energy?
Flywheels are an ingenious way to store energy. Essentially, a giant rotor is levitated and spun in a chamber by way of magnets. Since there is very little friction, the flywheel spins continually with very little added energy input needed. Energy can then be drawn from the system on command by tapping into the spinning rotor as a generator.