Flywheel as Energy Storage Facility (FESF)

Anil Chaudhary1, David Kadish2, Laurent Titzl3, Manuel Knecht4 (group leader), Sonny Bharaj5

1 Power and Water, Darwin, Australia 2 University of British Columbia, Kelowna, Canada 3ABB Switzerland, Zuerich, Switzerland 4 LucerneUniversity of Applied Sciences and Arts, Lucerne, Switzerland 5 University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

Abstract: Energy usage and consumption is considered a growing problem. Engineers around the world are finding innovative methods to create and deliver new solutions. The challenge is to generate and distribute energy in ways which will not negatively impact the environment. This paper explores the history and theory, current advantages and disadvantages, and the potential for economic benefit from various applications of flywheel-based systems. It is demonstrated that flywheel technology could prove to be costsaving and even profit-making. The use of flywheels as energy storage systems is examined in three use-cases: Flywheel used to offset peak energy demands by storing energy during low-demand times; Flywheels as frequency regulation equipment in the electrical grid; Flywheels, used as the main powering engine, directly embedded in transportation systems. In general, it is found that while flywheels are not the only option, they are a competitive choice for applications which require frequent cycling and short-term storage with high power throughput. Keywords: flywheel, energy storage unit, peak demand, energy stability

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1 Introduction
Currently, electricity is easily generated from a number of non-renewable sources that involve the turning of an electric generator to produce power. Some of these sources include coal, natural gas, nuclear and petroleum. Only a small fraction of power is generated from renewable sources such as hydro, solar, wind, geothermal and biomass. As we are becoming more aware of our environment and the negative effects of non-renewable sources, we are beginning to see a change in trends to generate energy from renewable sources. The widespread use of renewable sources of power introduces new set of challenges to the energy production and distribution system. One tool for easing the transition to more renewable energy sources is the flywheel. A flywheel energy storage system (FESS) is a large rotating mass close coupled to an electric motor/generator. The rotating mass stores rotational energy which is converted to electrical energy through the rotation of an electric generator. Flywheels initially were used to smooth out mechanic systems by adding mass and momentum to a system. However, NASAs research into flywheel energy systems for space missions during the latter half of the twentieth century initiated the idea of utilizing flywheel systems for energy storage.

2 Flywheel Basics
2.1 Physics
The energy storage capability of a flywheel is given in the equation below where E equals energy, I is equal to the moment of inertia, and w is equal to the rotational speed of the flywheel.

The moment of inertia is a physical quantity, which depends on the mass and shape of the flywheel. It is defined as the integral of the square of the distance from the axis of rotation to the differential mass. From this we can deduce that there are two governing principles in how much energy a flywheel can store, the moment of inertia and angular velocity of the flywheel. An increase the power of a flywheel system is related to an increase in the speed or mass. The equation also allows controllers to know the exact amount of energy stored in a flywheel given its rotational speed, which is an advantage over systems such as batteries.

[1]

Engineering Considerations
The simplest way to increase the power of a flywheel is to increase the speed. However, the materialused for the flywheel needs to have the tensile strength to handle the inertial loads generated when rotating at high speeds. This is considered one the limiting problems faced by flywheel systems and as research progresses newer materials are being developed with higher tensile strengths. A notable example of newer material is carbon fiber [2]. Research has shown that it has great specific energy storing capacity due to high tensile strength. Carbon fiber composites can rotate at higher speeds in comparison to metals like steel.

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Construction
A modern flywheel system today is operated inside a partial or nearly full vacuum to reduce energy loss due to rotational drag and suspended by either steel or ceramic ball or magnetic bearings to reduce friction. Below is a cross section of two modern flywheel systems.

Figure 1 Flywheel cross-section [1]

The design of a flywheel system in a vacuum chamber with magnetic bearings has greatly increased the efficiency as there is less friction stress on moving parts. This has reduced maintenance on flywheel systems.

Technical Details Storage Capacity:

The operating mechanism of flywheels is basic: spin a mass to store energy. This allows the technology to scale quite well. Flywheels with storage capacities as low as 3 kWh have been reported being used to help power a bus, while a team at the University of Austin has been developing a 133 kWh wheel [3]. Flywheels of any size can be networked together to create a system with a much larger effective capacity.

Efficiency:
The efficiency of a flywheel depends on the efficiency of the conversions from electrical to mechanical energy and back, as well as on the losses due to air- and bearing-friction during standby operation. The conversion efficiency of flywheels is in the range of 90%. During standby, however, even the most advanced flywheels can lose 1-5% of their power every hour [4]. This is the equivalent of between 20% and 70% loss over the course of a day. This means that flywheels are not appropriate for long- or medium-term applications and are best used in short time-scale applications.

Power:
One of the key strengths of flywheels is their ability to provide or absorb large bursts of power for short-time periods. Flywheels can have power capacities of up to 10 MW, allowing them to act as quick charge and discharge units [4].

Power Density:
Power density is an area where flywheels could improve. Flywheel power densities depend heavily on the mass and tensile strength of the equipment and, given the wide range of materials used, vary considerably. Some commercially available flywheels are in the 10 Wh/kg range, while experimental designs approach the 75 Wh/kg mark [5]. 4|Page

Life cycle:
The life cycle of a flywheel is affected by the wear on its bearings, and torsion stresses on rotors. Wear on the bearings is mitigated in newer flywheels by the use of magnetic bearings, so the life cycle is estimated to be approximately 20 years.

Environmental Impact:
Flywheels are made of steel or composites such as carbon fibre. The environmental impact over their life cycles relates almost entirely to how those materials are prepared and then disposed of at the end of the equipments use. During operation, it produces no significant emissions or byproducts - other than heat due to friction - and therefore has a minimal impact on the environment compared to many other technologies.

Sample Specifications:
In order to gain a general understanding of the types of flywheels that are available commercially, Table [1] shows the specifications of a selection of three flywheels, manufactured by a company called Rosseta. System efficiency maximum rotation speed (RPM) continuous output maximum temporary output available energy station supply weight possible prices T3 75 % 6.000 3 kW 4 kW 21 kWs 42 W 60 kg > 140.000 T2 89 % 25.000 500 kW 1.000 kW 4 kWh 2.100 W 650 kg > 17.000 T4 1 75 % 50.000 100 kW 150 kW 2 kWh 1.000 W 100 kg 45.000 68.000

Table 1 Sample specifications for flywheel energy storage systems

3 Storage Mechanisms
Flywheels are only one among many options for storing excess electric energy. In this section, we outline a selection of alternatives so that we have a basis for assessing the performance of flywheels in various applications. We ignore systems such as pumped hydroelectric and compressed air storage that are not applicable to the same types of problems as flywheels, and focus on potentially competing technologies.

3.1 Batteries
Batteries store electric energy creating chemical bonds and then release the energy by breaking the same bonds. A large range of battery times gives them a large range of operating characteristics. Lead-acid batteries are inexpensive and have energy densities in the range of 30 Wh/kg [6]. Lithium-ion batteries are costly, but can have energy densities in the range of 125 Wh/kg [6].
1

Possible start of production in 2012

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In general, batteries are highly effective at storing energy in the medium term - on the order of days and weeks. They are, however, unable to provide extremely high power and suffer from short lifecycles before requiring replacement. In an environmental sense, batteries tend to contain highly toxic and corrosive chemicals. These can be contained if batteries are disposed of and recycled properly, but it is better to avoid their use, if possible. An additional disadvantage is that battery charge is often a non-linear function. Whereas the remaining energy or capacity of a flywheel can be calculated exactly from its velocity, it can be difficult to determine exactly how much energy remains. Finally, some types of batteries are damaged if they are deep-cycled - that is, discharged fully - while flywheels are unaffected by full cycle use.

3.2 Hydrogen
During times of excess power production, electrolysis is conducted on available water sources to create hydrogen and oxygen. When power is required, the reverse process is engaged and electrical energy is extracted as water re-forms from the hydrogen and oxygen molecules. Hydrogen has a low volumetric energy density, but quite a high energy density by mass [6]. Because it produces only water as a byproduct, and does not add much weight for the energy that it provides, it has been investigated as a possibility for transportation fuel. However, the electrolysis-fuel cell process is only about 35% efficient and is therefore not a good solution for stationary storage [4].

3.3 Electric Double-Layer Capacitors

Electric Double-Layer Capacitors - also known as supercapacitors and ultracapacitors - store electric charge statically. Capacitors are commonly used electronic components and form critical pieces of everything from camera flashes to computers. EDLCs make use of advances in capacitor materials to create more energy-dense capacitors. EDLCs have similar energy densities to flywheels, in the 5 Wh/kg range [6]. They can response on faster timescales, providing or accepting power in milliseconds where it takes flywheels a few seconds. ELDCs have lifespans that are comparable to those of flywheels and far exceed the useful life of batteries. ELDCs lose energy at the relatively high rate of 5% per day which, although better than flywheels, means that ELDCs are unsuitable for longer term energy storage. For short-term applications, EDLCs have efficiencies in the 95% range. Due to the lack of a chemical reaction, ELDCs are considered an environmentally benign method of energy storage.

3.4 Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage

In SMESs, energy is stored as in DC form in a supercooled inductor. SMESs have many of the same advantages and disadvantages as ELDCs and flywheels. Their 95% efficiency and fast response time make them ideal for shortterm applications. The major challenge with SMESs is that they must be supercooled, which makes its implementation more complex than ELDCs or flywheels. Still, they can be useful in larger-scale, short time frame storage applications.

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4 Applications
Given the high losses that flywheels incur during standby, it is unsurprising that they are most effective in applications where large amounts of power should be stored and released over short time scales.

4.1 Short-burst power

Starting a system often requires a burst of power significantly greater than what the system normally provides. In order to avoid oversizing the entire system, flywheels can be used to provide an initial boost. The University of Texas developed a flywheel to propel a train to cruising speed. A roller coaster in the United States uses a flywheel to launch the car from standing position in lieu of a large hill. Flywheels have been used to power a carrier aircraft launch, and are often found in high energy physics laboratories to power research equipment that would overload the grid otherwise. When the electrical grid loses power and then restarts, a large number of appliances start up simultaneously and use a large amount of power to do so. Flywheels, charged beforehand, can help to ensure that the grid is not overloaded immediately upon restart. They are also used to power uninterruptable power supply (UPS) systems from the time that grid power disengages until backup generators can be started.

4.2 Gap-filling
In some applications, there is a mismatch between supply and demand. Flywheels work as flexible storage to absorb excess electrical supply and return it to the system when demand dictates it is necessary. Grid frequency regulation is discussed in further detail below, as is the use of flywheels to fill slightly longer-term gaps in power supply for an isolated building powered by renewable energy. NASA made use of that flywheel application to power the International Space Station when the station is in the Earths shadow and batteries wore out too quickly [3]. The same phenomenon is in effect when flywheels are used in regenerative braking for electric vehicles, absorbing excess mechanical energy and then re-emitting during acceleration.

4.3 Smoothing loads

Many power sources operate most effectively in a narrow range. Flywheel performance characteristics are more even across a range of operating conditions and so they are often used to draw energy from a source in a constant manner and then output it to a load in a more erratic fashion. A prototype bus in the Netherlands uses powers a flywheel with a constantly turning motor. The flywheel powered the bus through stops and starts and achieved a 35% increase in efficiency over the motor alone [3]. They have similarly been used to produce variable power while allowing the batteries that supply the system to discharge at a smooth and constant rate.

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5 Use Case: Off-Grid Home Energy

Figure 2 Residential flywheel system schematic

The proposed residential flywheel system above is a fail-safe power production unit which can deliver enough energy to an average Australian, Canadian and European home over the course of a day. The system includes hybrid solar/wind/diesel integrated to the main AC bus. The access energy produced by renewable energy sources will charge a 10 kW flywheel. During night time, when solar production drops, the wind generator and flywheel will power the house. The proposed system can produce maximum of 11 kWh. In exceptional case, when there is not enough solar, wind, and charged flywheel energy to meet the demand, the diesel genset will switch on and will supply power to the house. The system will be fully automated and will use renewable energy as a base load. The whole system will be integrated with a single control unit which will prioritize which system to use according to the load demand. When the flywheel is fully charged and renewable energy sources are producing more energy than demand, controls will come in place and it will use residual renewable energy to produce hot water for household uses. The proposed system will be the state of art renewable technology with 100% renewable penetration. Diesel genset is used for uninterrupted power supply when there is not adequate wind, solar and flywheel energy left in the system. Looking at the practical implication of the following system, it can be used in off-grid applications. The proposed failsafe renewable energy system can be used in remote homes, schools, farms and hospitals. The table below details the approximate cost of the major equipment for the proposed system.

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Item Flywheel System Solar System (Flat PV System) Wind System Diesel Genset Civil works and extra equipment cost Total System Cost

Capacity Cost 10 kW 3 kW 3 kW 5 kW 58,035.9 16,000 27,174 5,000 18,827.7 125037.6

Table 2 Cost of a full household power system

6 Use Case: Energy Grid Frequency Regulation

6.1 Energy Markets
The efficient usage of power generation resources has become increasingly important, fed mainly by the context of energy market liberalization. In many countries, particularly in North America or in Europe, the authorities are pushing for opening up the energy markets to private investment and this leads to large adjustments of the market structure. An important result of this is that the tasks of power generation, transmission and distribution are no longer in the hand of one company, but have been divided and are carried out by different entities. One of the entities which plays a central role along the energy supply chain is the Independent System Operator (ISO). The ISOs responsibility is to ensure the reliable, safe and efficient transmission of energy over the grid in a given area [7].

6.2 ISO Services

Among the most important of the ISOs tasks is ensuring that the power grids frequency remains stable about its nominal operating point (50 or 60 Hz, depending in which region of the world the ISO is operating). Such stability is achieved by maintaining power generation resources specifically for that purpose. The grid frequency shifts when theres an imbalance between the power supply and load in the grid. ISOs schedule base power supply based on accurate predictions of the load over the course of a day. To handle the small fluctuations in power use and therefore the frequency of the grid on a minute-by-minute and second-by-second basis, ISOs have historically directed 1 to 2 percent of their power generation capacity to frequency adjustment [8]. The set of resources that comprise this fraction of the grid is known as spinning reserve. Maintaining a spinning reserve is not the only method of frequency stabilization. The opening energy markets have begun to attract investment and research into alternatives. Energy market regulators have opened separate markets for the sourcing of frequency regulation and European regulators have begun to discuss standards for such markets [7]. A separate market for frequency stabilization allows technologies that are suited to this type of operation to become profitable and beneficial components of the electrical grid.

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6.3 Flywheels as Frequency Regulation Equipment

Conventionally, coal-, oil-, and gas-fired plants are used as spinning reserve because they are able to rapidly shift production levels. These reserves are costly because they are run constantly but little of their power is utilized. Additionally, the plants are a sizable source of emissions. The constant fluctuations in production increase the levels of strain and wear on the equipment, especially if it is not built for reserve generation. When spinning reserve is used in an electrical grid, the grid produces all of the projected demand, plus a little bit extra in order to satisfy the rapid fluctuations in actual demand which are essentially stochastic in nature. When actual energy use is below the level of projected demand plus the reserve at any given point in time which is hopefully always the excess energy is wasted. The use of flywheels in the electrical grid would smooth the difference between projections and actual demand. When the demand fluctuates below the projection, flywheels can store the excess energy. When demand fluctuates back below the projection, flywheels can rapidly push energy back into the grid to compensate and maintain the desired frequency. The economic advantage to this is that most of the spinning reserve would be unnecessary. The flywheel operators would need to be paid, but since they burn no fuel of their own, the operational costs are far lower than fossil fuel-based spinning reserve plants. The lack of burning fuel also produces an environmental benefit. The flywheels need to be charged in order to be able to stabilize the grid, but they would be using power that is currently wasted to do so and therefore would not produce any further emissions. A final advantage to flywheels over fossil fuel plants is their scalability. Fossil fuel plants are subject to large economies of scale because they require the delivery of fuel. Flywheels are functional at any scale. Smaller versions can be positioned closer to energy sources and loads, in urban centres and even in individuals homes. This can help to minimize the transmission cost of energy and further increase the effectiveness of the system.

6.4 Alternatives to Flywheels

The main competitors to flywheels in performing frequency regulation are ELDCs and SMESs. Section 0 discusses the advantages and disadvantages of both. Given that their performance is quite similar to flywheels in many ways, and that all three technologies are still developing rapidly, it is likely that all three will continue to be used for frequency regulation in the near future. In addition to the three aforementioned technologies, demand response is able to help maintain stable frequencies. Demand response refers to the ability to decrease or increase the duty cycles of some operating equipment to help balance the grid. It differs from storage because it exclusively manages the load and cannot replace supply if the other grid loads are greater than the collective supply. The advantage to demand response is that it does not require any significant amount of new equipment. Demand response refers only to the control schemes for installed equipment such as refrigerators, HVAC systems or laptop chargers. If the controllers for the systems can be modified, then the implementation could be done at minimal cost with a large benefit.

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6.5 Renewable Energy

The presence of large volumes of renewable energy on the grid constitutes another challenge for frequency stability. Many sources of renewable energy are subject to rapid fluxes in production. Windmills display this behaviour in gusty wind conditions and solar panels in the presence of intermittent clouds. In a power system with stable, centralized production, the grid operator had only to worry about fluctuations in demand. As energy systems embrace ever higher proportions of renewable sources, the ISOs must take into account variations in production as well as consumption. Flywheels can play in integral role in smoothing out these short timescale fluctuations to help balance the system at minimal cost.

6.6 The Role of Flywheels in Frequency Response

As the last few sections discuss, frequency response is an important and growing component of electrical grid management. Given the richness of the technologies that are able to perform this service, it is unlikely and undesirable that any one method will emerge as the sole option. However, we believe that flywheels will be an important component of the frequency response markets as more capacity is needed in this area.

7 Use Case: Public Transportation Power

It is a matter of fact, that the worldwide population tends more and more to settle and cluster together in cities, besides that it keeps on growing. Cities have to be considered as a place, which concentrates a huge number of different markets, which means basically economical chances for making ones living and hence that's why, they have such an attractive effect on the human populations. This will take a lot and be a great challenge to make big cities livable in the future and not ending up for them drowned into vehicle congestion, pollution and overcrowded buildings. The main shortcoming of car transportation is that the road infrastructure gets more and more much too small to enable all car-owning people an easy and timeeffective journey across the city. Moreover, there is a greater commitment totaking into account environmental constraints, which calls for more efficient and eco-friendly solution for transportation. That's why transportation systems are now under the spotlight in order to help out to this situation. It shall be highly efficient, able to carry a lot of passengers across the city, and largely eco-friendly.

7.1 Transportation Systems for Large Cities

Focusing on the worlds large cities such as Sao Paulo, Lima and Mumbai, it is striking that the development process of these cities has been conducted such that nowadays it makes difficult afterwards to plan any transportation system in the city. At first instance, this means that for integrating a transportation system infrastructure across the whole city and taking into account the existing boundary conditions, the transportation infrastructure development plan should keep a low and limited constructive impact on the existing city layout. For any electrical powered transportation system, there could be a strong limitation and low public acceptance level (for instance, because of the incurred costs of revamping the city to prepare for the installation of all overhead lines) to install any powering line network all over the city. The only way of meeting all these high-constraining requirements is to design a transportation system without any overhead lines and which would be powered by an on-board source. This on-board system would make use of a dedicated energy-storage device.

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7.2 Flywheels as Transportation Power

In [9], a diagram shows the technical performance of flywheels compared to other energy storage systems. Based on these technical advantages, this creates a more efficient and less-costly powering system. Stemmed by the observation that cities will face many challenges in the near future, there will be a growing need for decongestioning solution for the transportation. Moreover, since some cities have very limited capacity to set up any electrical feeding line network all over the city, it can be predicted that the transportation will have to be powered by construction less-impacting solution, like directly on-board mounted powering system, a technological field, where flywheels-based energy storage system turned out to be very efficient.

8 Conclusions
As more renewable sources of energy are built and more transportation systems strive for eco-friendly fuels, it is clear that the ability to trade high power electricity in short time scales will become ever more important. A number of technologies advanced capacitors, supercooled magnets, and flywheels are able to meet that challenge. As the market matures, each technology will specialise in certain applications and begin to fill new niches. Whatever direction the electricity markets and these technologies take, we are quite confident that there will be a role for flywheels in facilitating increasingly environmentally conscious power.

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9 References
[1] Bjorn B, Hans B, Mats L., 2007, Flywheel energy and power storage systems, Renewable and

Sustainable energy Reviews, 11 (2007), pp. 235-258.

[2] Tzeng, J., Emerson, R., & Moy, P. (2006). Composite flywheels for energy storage.

COMPOSITES SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 66(14), 2520-2527. [3] Davide Castelvecchi. (2007). Spinning into control: High-tech reincarnations of an ancient way of storing energy.Science News, 171(20), 312-313.
[4] Ibrahim, H., Ilinca, A., & Perron, J. (2007). Energy storage systems-characteristics and

comparisons. RENEWABLE & SUSTAINABLE ENERGY REVIEWS, 12(5), 1221-1250.

[5] Beacon Power Corporation: Development of a 100 kWh/100kW Flywheel Energy Storage Module,

[6] [7] [8] [9]

Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy, United States Department of Energy, http://arpae.energy.gov/ProgramsProjects/GRIDS/Developmentofa100kWh100kWFlywheelEnergySt.aspx Biczel, P. (2008). Energy storage systems. In (pp. 269-302). London: Springer London. Copley, Mark, Contributing to the development of balancing and ancillary services markets, ENTSOE, https://www.entsoe.eu/market/balancing-and-ancillary-services-markets/ Frequency Regulation, Beacon Power, http://beaconpower.com/solutions/frequency-regulation.asp Fly-wheels (Storage technology), Energy Efficiency Technologies for Railways, UIC, http://www.railway-energy.org/tfee/index.php?TECHNOLOGYID=51&ID=220&SEL=210

10 Contact
If you are interested to get into contact with the autors of this technical document, you can write them to their respective email address:

Manuel KNECHT: manuel.knecht@stud.fh-rosenheim.de Laurent TITZL: laurent_titzl2000@yahoo.fr

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