New rotating energy storage system

5.8.2016

Abigail Carson, student of the third year at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the U.K.‘s Lancaster University, has developed a new design of the Flywheel Energy Storage (FES) system. The FES system stores energy using levitated flywheel. The unit designed by Miss Carson is around the size of a football. Results of simulations and calculations show that the newly designed unit can rotate with the speed of up to 144 thousand rpm, which is much more than most existing designs which rotate with the speed of around 60,000 rpm.

The football-size unit would be suitable for example for households, the system capacity could, however, be easily scale up by connecting large number of smaller units. In case of one individual unit failure, the whole system does not have to be shut down. In comparison to batteries, the FES system should have much longer lifespan – around 30 years. The FES system capacity does not decrease with time. The FES system can be very quickly charged and discharged. Miss Carson has a patent pending and if she finds an investor, she will try to succeed with the design on the market.

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