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Flywheels are underrated tech for both stability and decentralized energy storage. They should receive environmental funding just like solar and wind do.

by 1970-01-01 3y ago

crazygringo 3y ago
Can you point to resources explaining why they're a good choice? Because the general consensus seems to be that large things like pumped hydro are good for centralized energy storage, while batteries are the choice for decentralized energy storage -- whether in your utility closet or in your EV. Why should anyone choose a flywheel over a battery?
- 1970-01-01 3y ago
  https://amberkinetics.com https://amberkinetics.com Advantages over chemical batteries: >85% round trip efficiency (DC) >No daily cycling limitations >No degradation over time >Full power over full State-of-Charge range >No HVAC required >Operates in hot and cold environments (-20C to 50C) >Fast response time (<1 second) >Sustainable and recyclable all-steel design >Safe & reliable–no fire hazard >Lower O&M cost >30-year design life
  - crazygringo 3y ago
    Thanks -- what about disadvantages? Surely it's not all advantages.
    - auspiv 3y ago
      What I've seen is they require fancy materials (carbon fiber, etc) due to the extremely high rotation rates (>100k rpm). For maximum efficiency, the flywheel needs to be in a vacuum to eliminate frictional air resistance losses. They also need magnetic bearings. None of these are exactly a problem, they just cost money to implement properly. I would say this copy + pasted list is not great. No HVAC required - ok but you do need to suck down a huge vacuum, which is a lot more difficult than traditional HVAC Hot and cold - see above point All steel - not sure about that, maybe for lower speed applications, which reduces the amount of energy stored Safe & reliable - hard to say that a huge mass spinning >100k rpm is "safe". By itself there is no fire hazard sure. but what if your magnetic bearings fail and it hops off and starts trying to escape it's (vacuum) enclosure. Then you have tons of sparks and pressure differences and other non-fun things. O&M - [citation required] 30 year life - surely with all the plusses listed, it should be longer than 30 year life?
    - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
      I think rather than think about it as "pros and cons", a better approach is to think about where these various types of storage are used. I think the analogy of hard disk drive -> RAM -> on-chip cache for memory storage (that is cheapest/longest lived/slowest to most expensive/short term/fastest) also works well for energy storage: 1. Pumped hydro is currently best for long term-storage. The lack of other cost-competitive long-term storage options is currently one of the biggest issues with renewables and an active area of investigation. 2. Batteries are good for daily smoothing (i.e. when the sun goes down), but they have limited charge/discharge cycles, they lose charge over time, and they don't, as of yet, have storage capacities needed for long term storage. 3. As the article points out, flywheels are good at instantly changing output based on changes in the grid, so they're good for frequency regulation and onboarding/offboarding new energy sources. Their biggest downside is their limited capacity compared to other tech.
    - dzhiurgis 3y ago
      Wrecks entire village in case of catastrophic failure
  - auspiv 3y ago
    You have listed the advantages directly from a company that sells flywheel devices. Surely there are no biases here.
  - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
    At least two of these (85% efficiency and fast response time < 1 sec) are factually incorrect if presented as an advantage of flywheels over batteries, which do better on those metrics.
- cwmma 3y ago
  flywheels can go through charge and discharge cycles pretty much infinitely at least compared to batteries. Somebody posted a chart a chart on reddit recently comparing energy storage technologies based on how long they need to discharge for and how frequently https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/17r9q6s/oc_most_costcompetitive_technologies_for_energy/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/17r9q6s/oc...
- ben_bai 3y ago
  When you have multiple cycles per day, the higher price of flywheels trumps over the limited but cheaper battery lifespan. Batteries degrade with charge cycles.
ComodoHacker 3y ago
Are they safe and simple enough to operate at the neighborhood or even household level as a backup energy storage, where the grid is faulty? For example, in some region of Africa?
- 1970-01-01 3y ago
  Seems like this is already done: https://amberkinetics.com/installation/the-reliable-energy-solution/ https://amberkinetics.com/installation/the-reliable-energy-s... https://amberkinetics.com/installations/ https://amberkinetics.com/installations/
gumby 3y ago
People explored them in the 2008-ish climate boomlet and it was hard to make the physics/costs work. If something has changed since then it might be worth looking at again, else that's probably why nobody is pursuing them today.
- standeven 3y ago
  Physics work, but cost has historically been the issue. My current project involves driving down the cost to make extremely affordable 50 kWh flywheel modules.
  - ako 3y ago
    Sized to fit in a car?
    - gumby 3y ago
      A stationary car…I’d imagine it would make steering difficult. And if you had a crash…!!
    - standeven 3y ago
      No, stationary only. It’s modular, so you can combine as many as you need for grid-scale storage.
standeven 3y ago
My company is working on this right now. We are early/stealth but moving towards a pilot project and acquiring IP. Placeholder site: vortical.io

Flywheels are underrated tech for both stability and decentralized energy storage. They should receive environmental funding just like solar and wind do.

crazygringo 3y ago

Can you point to resources explaining why they're a good choice? Because the general consensus seems to be that large things like pumped hydro are good for centralized energy storage, while batteries are the choice for decentralized energy storage -- whether in your utility closet or in your EV. Why should anyone choose a flywheel over a battery?

1970-01-01 3y ago
https://amberkinetics.com https://amberkinetics.com Advantages over chemical batteries: >85% round trip efficiency (DC) >No daily cycling limitations >No degradation over time >Full power over full State-of-Charge range >No HVAC required >Operates in hot and cold environments (-20C to 50C) >Fast response time (<1 second) >Sustainable and recyclable all-steel design >Safe & reliable–no fire hazard >Lower O&M cost >30-year design life
- crazygringo 3y ago
  Thanks -- what about disadvantages? Surely it's not all advantages.
  - auspiv 3y ago
    What I've seen is they require fancy materials (carbon fiber, etc) due to the extremely high rotation rates (>100k rpm). For maximum efficiency, the flywheel needs to be in a vacuum to eliminate frictional air resistance losses. They also need magnetic bearings. None of these are exactly a problem, they just cost money to implement properly. I would say this copy + pasted list is not great. No HVAC required - ok but you do need to suck down a huge vacuum, which is a lot more difficult than traditional HVAC Hot and cold - see above point All steel - not sure about that, maybe for lower speed applications, which reduces the amount of energy stored Safe & reliable - hard to say that a huge mass spinning >100k rpm is "safe". By itself there is no fire hazard sure. but what if your magnetic bearings fail and it hops off and starts trying to escape it's (vacuum) enclosure. Then you have tons of sparks and pressure differences and other non-fun things. O&M - [citation required] 30 year life - surely with all the plusses listed, it should be longer than 30 year life?
  - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
    I think rather than think about it as "pros and cons", a better approach is to think about where these various types of storage are used. I think the analogy of hard disk drive -> RAM -> on-chip cache for memory storage (that is cheapest/longest lived/slowest to most expensive/short term/fastest) also works well for energy storage: 1. Pumped hydro is currently best for long term-storage. The lack of other cost-competitive long-term storage options is currently one of the biggest issues with renewables and an active area of investigation. 2. Batteries are good for daily smoothing (i.e. when the sun goes down), but they have limited charge/discharge cycles, they lose charge over time, and they don't, as of yet, have storage capacities needed for long term storage. 3. As the article points out, flywheels are good at instantly changing output based on changes in the grid, so they're good for frequency regulation and onboarding/offboarding new energy sources. Their biggest downside is their limited capacity compared to other tech.
  - dzhiurgis 3y ago
    Wrecks entire village in case of catastrophic failure
- auspiv 3y ago
  You have listed the advantages directly from a company that sells flywheel devices. Surely there are no biases here.
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  At least two of these (85% efficiency and fast response time < 1 sec) are factually incorrect if presented as an advantage of flywheels over batteries, which do better on those metrics.
cwmma 3y ago
flywheels can go through charge and discharge cycles pretty much infinitely at least compared to batteries. Somebody posted a chart a chart on reddit recently comparing energy storage technologies based on how long they need to discharge for and how frequently https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/17r9q6s/oc_most_costcompetitive_technologies_for_energy/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/17r9q6s/oc...
ben_bai 3y ago
When you have multiple cycles per day, the higher price of flywheels trumps over the limited but cheaper battery lifespan. Batteries degrade with charge cycles.

ComodoHacker 3y ago

Are they safe and simple enough to operate at the neighborhood or even household level as a backup energy storage, where the grid is faulty? For example, in some region of Africa?

1970-01-01 3y ago
Seems like this is already done: https://amberkinetics.com/installation/the-reliable-energy-solution/ https://amberkinetics.com/installation/the-reliable-energy-s... https://amberkinetics.com/installations/ https://amberkinetics.com/installations/

gumby 3y ago

People explored them in the 2008-ish climate boomlet and it was hard to make the physics/costs work. If something has changed since then it might be worth looking at again, else that's probably why nobody is pursuing them today.

standeven 3y ago
Physics work, but cost has historically been the issue. My current project involves driving down the cost to make extremely affordable 50 kWh flywheel modules.
- ako 3y ago
  Sized to fit in a car?
  - gumby 3y ago
    A stationary car…I’d imagine it would make steering difficult. And if you had a crash…!!
  - standeven 3y ago
    No, stationary only. It’s modular, so you can combine as many as you need for grid-scale storage.

standeven 3y ago

My company is working on this right now. We are early/stealth but moving towards a pilot project and acquiring IP. Placeholder site: vortical.io