Flywheel Energy Storage Project Investment Planning

Can flywheel energy storage be commercially viable?

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 energy storage system?

Fig. 1 has been produced to illustrate the flywheel energy storage system, including its sub-components and the related technologies. A FESS consists of several key components: (1) A rotor/flywheel for storing the kinetic energy. (2) A bearing system to support the ro-tor/flywheel.

What is the power rating of a flywheel energy storage system?

Utility-scale energy storage systems for stationary applications typically have power ratings of 1 MW or more . The largest flywheel energy storage is in New York, USA by Beacon Power with a power rating of 20 MW and 15 min discharge duration .

Are flywheel energy storage systems a good alternative to electro-chemical batteries?

Electro-chemical ESSs can be used in short-duration services , , but they suffer from a short lifetime and the need to dispose of toxic materials , . Flywheel energy storage systems (FESSs) are a promising alternative to electro-chemical batteries for short-duration support to the grid .

Are flywheel-based hybrid energy storage systems based on compressed air energy storage?

While many papers compare different ESS technologies, only a few research [152,153] 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.

Does a flywheel storage system need a bottom-up research?

However, almost no bottom-up research has been done, i.e., research that considers the technical parameters to size the components of a flywheel storage system, estimate cost parameters based on the design, and provide a probable distribution of the total investment cost and levelized cost of storage.