Using Flywheels to Meet Peak Power Grid Demands

hackertourist writes "A novel type of electricity storage was recently added to the New York power grid. The unit, supplied by Beacon Power, uses flywheels to store energy. This system is intended to replace gas turbines in supplying short-term peaks in power demand (also known as frequency regulation). It can supply up to 20 MW, using 200 flywheels." If you can't afford a 200-flywheel system, you can always get a racetrack-ready Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid, which has a single energy-storage flywheel that can give you a 160 HP burst of power when you need a little extra oomph.

Re:and if you use maglev bearings

[robthebloke]

From the article: Beacon Power's spinning flywheels, which are made of carbon fiber and levitated in a vacuum by magnets, absorb energy from the grid and discharge 1 megawatt for as much as 15 minutes

Re:New tech?

[ron_ivi]

Also in use in vehicles since the 50's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrobus [wikipedia.org]

Rather than carrying an internal combustion engine or batteries, or connecting to overhead powerlines, a gyrobus carries a large flywheel that is spun at up to 3,000 RPM by a "squirrel cage" motor. .... ...
Fully charged, a gyrobus could typically travel as far as 6km on a level route at speeds of up to 50 to 60 km/h, ...
Charging a flywheel took between 30 seconds and 3 minutes;

Sounds nicer than most electric cars.

Re:and if you use maglev bearings

[el3mentary]

The Coriolis effect is far too small to have any significant impact on flywheels this small, it only really has an effect on large scale systems such as cyclonic storms and even then it's amplified due to the proximity to the equator.

Re:Gimbals

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

. Earth is slowing down [wikipedia.org] That is why they need to add leap seconds, (yes, they effectively stop all the clocks in the world for a second) at the end of every year to sych the clocks with Earth's rotations.

Re:Add to windmills

[Anonymous Coward]

This is already standard practice. In fact, the entire fucking propeller acts a big flywheel. They are massive and balanced radially.

Re:15 mega watts of energy storage

[Arlet]

That average energy consumption isn't just electricity. Average electricity per person is just 1460 W for the US, which is what this system is for.

Re:NaS batteries beat flywheels hands down.

[goodmanj]

No, TFA is confusing statistics of individual flywheels with clusters of them. The individual 25 kwh flywheels are grouped into modular clusters of 10: each of these 10-unit modules delivers 250 kwh (1 MW for 15 mins), and is the size of a couple of cargo containers. See this white paper [beaconpower.com] from the manufacturer.