What is a flywheel?
The total energy stored in a flywheel scales linear to the mass and quadratically to the spinning speed of the rotor. This means that increasing the speed of the rotor significantly gains energy
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 systems (FESS) use electric energy input which is stored in the form of kinetic energy. Kinetic energy can be described as “energy of motion,” in this case the motion of a spinning mass, called a rotor. The rotor spins in a nearly frictionless enclosure.
The amount of energy that can be stored in a flywheel is a function of the square of the RPM making higher rotational speeds desirable. Currently, high-power flywheels are used in many aerospace and UPS applications. Today 2 kW/6 kWh systems are being used in telecommunications applications.
The kinetic energy stored in the flywheel is presented in Eq. (1). where E is the stored energy, J is the moment of inertia, ω is the rotational speed. The speed of the flywheel undergoes the state of charge, increasing during the energy storage stored and decreasing when discharges.
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