DOE ESHB Chapter 7 Flywheels
Over the past 50 years of the development of flywheel energy storage systems, numerous unusual configurations have been explored. These include straight fibers oriented along the
Flywheel Energy Storage Systems (FESS) rely on a mechanical working principle: An electric motor is used to spin a rotor of high inertia up to 20,000-50,000 rpm. Electrical energy is thus converted to kinetic energy for storage. For discharging, the motor acts as a generator, braking the rotor to produce electricity.
Flywheel energy storage system use is increasing, which has encouraged research in design improvement, performance optimization, and cost analysis. However, the system's environmental impacts for utility applications have not been widely studied.
Steel rotor and composite rotor flywheel energy storage systems were assessed for a capacity of 20 MW for short-duration utility applications. A consistent system boundary was considered for both systems with the life cycle stages of material production, operation, transportation, and end-of-life.
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.
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