Flywheels Not Common?

 


  Doing a bit of casual surfing this evening, I eventually fixated
on flywheels. I have not seen much posted / discussed on their use,
versus conventional battery storage. Is this primarily a cost issue?
My first pass at the information available has me thinking that,
although the intial investment is heftier, it seems that flywheels
are superior long-term solutions. By long term, I mean a solution
that lasts decades, instead of the lifecycle of batteries. I also
like the idea that a flywheel can be completely drained of energy
without the detrimental effects that batteries would succumb to.
 So far, I've only found Beacon Power to be producing anything
commercial in this market segment, and it looks to be specifically
for telecommunications gear
http://www.beaconpower.com
  Anyone using flywheels, or know of someone producing flywheel
storage for the non-commercial market?
  You'd think that a flywheel on an wind turbine would be an effective
storage option, it could theoretically allow you to time-shift power
generated by the turbines if you didn't need it at the exact moment
it was being generated.


--
Slackware 11.0, 2.6.18.3, K8M800 s754Sempron3100+, GF FX5200
RLU #272755

 

Danno wrote:

Flywheels have been discussed in the past and their basic failing
hasn't been overcome yet. The problem is basically one of materials.
In order to get the kind of energy density that lead acid batteries
have, a flywheel needs to spin very fast. Most materials can not
handle the kind of stress this produces. The kind of exotic materials
that can (carbon fibers) are also very expensive.

A new class of carbon fiber, nanotubes, should be even stronger and
would make flywheel energy storage more feasible. Unfortunately,
these are likely to be even more expensive.

I suppose you could just forget about energy density and build it
large and slow. I don't know the math but I've a suspicion that it
would require something very massive to provide comparable energy
storage to most homepower sized battery banks.

Anthony

 

On Mar 4, 6:27 am, Anthony Matonak

Check out your local early engine club - you'll see flywheels galore.
Back when the combustion engine was young and gasoline was
expensive(!) engines used what is called "hit n miss" in which the
engine spins a flywheel that holds the energy and the engine stops
firing until a governor activates and the engine fires again to spin
the flywheel up. Some of these early engines produced in excess of 600
hp and were used for pumping oil, water, running generators, boat
engines, lawn mowers and the like. My father in law before he passed
had a great collection of the things.

This place has some pretty good information and photographs of the
things.

http://www.coolsprinpowermuseum.org/

Here's another:
http://www.smokstak.com/gallery/

 

Per Anthony Matonak:

That's what came to my own mind as soon as I saw the OP.   For residential use,
the size/density issue seems to be mitigated to a great extent.   Something 10
feet high could easily be housed in something like a garden shed or other
outbuilding.  

But, as you observe, the truth will be in the numbers...
--
PeteCresswell

 

Anthony Matonak wrote:


What - a flywheel made from solid steel isin't strong enough?

If you want to build a wheel with spokes and stuff, then maybe.  But
if it's a solid wheel (which it should be anyways) then I can'd see
why a wheel made from solid metal wouldn't be strong enough to just
spin and spin and spin.