Vol. 7, No.

2, Mei 2016 ISSN: 2085-8817

DINAMIKA Jurnal Ilmiah Teknik Mesin

REVIEW : FLYWHEEL ENERGY STORAGE FOR USE IN RENEWABLE

AND DISTRIBUTED GENERATION
Aditya Rachman1*, Muhammad Umair2, Muhammad Hasbi1
1
Program Studi Teknik Mesin Fakultas Teknik Universitas Halu Oleo, Kendari
2
Mahasiswa Program Master di Departemen Electrical Engineering Wollongong University, Australia

*Email: aditya_rchmn@yahoo.com

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to discuss the use of flywheel energy storage for the renewable and distributed generation. This
paper also figures the details of a connection of the flywheel energy storage system to a stand-alone PV solar system
connected to a remote load. The methodology of generating this paper is literature studies. This paper is constructed
into following sections: the renewable energy, the distributed generation, the solar energy, the energy storage, the
flywheel energy storage, the use of energy storage and the connection of flywheel energy storage system into renewable
power.

Keywords: Energy storage, flywheel, renewable energy, distributed generation

Abstrak
Review : Penyimpan energi berbasis roda untuk penggunaan di teknologi energi terbarukan dan terdistrbusi.
Tujuan dari makalah ini adalah untuk membahas penggunaan penyimpanan energi roda gila untuk teknologi energi
terbarukan dan pembangkit terdistribusi . Makalah ini juga mempresentasikan rincian koneksi dari sistem penyimpanan
energi roda gila untuk sistem PV tata surya yang terhubung ke beban terpencil . Metodologi dalam membuat makalah
ini adalah studi literatur. Makalah ini disusun ke dalam bagian seperti berikut : energi terbarukan , pembangkit energi
terdistribusi, energi surya , penyimpanan energi, penyimpanan energi roda gila , penggunaan penyimpanan energi dan
koneksi dari sistem penyimpanan energi roda gila ke energi terbarukan.

Kata Kunci: Penyimpan energi, roda gila, energi terbarukan, energi terdistribusi

1. Background To cope with this problem, applying the clean

The Renewable Energy: Importance
Nowadays, the demand of electricity in the world
has been escalating significantly as the
population, economic and social growth.
Globally, the majority of power supply comes
from fossil fuels such as natural gas, fuel oil, and
coal. However, the use of these fuel sources is
constrained by the detrimental environmental
challenges as the carbon-dioxide emission
generation, one of the root causes of the
greenhouse gas, which causes the global
warming. The fossil fuel combustion accounts for
90% of the carbon-dioxide emission (Rahman et
al, 2014 and Jos et al, 2014).
alternative renewable power sources can be one
of the solutions. With the recent rapid
development of sustainable energy technologies
and increasing demand for a low-emission
generation, the utilization of renewables shows
promising prospects (Kuang et al, 2016).
Distributed Generation: Definition, Benefits
and Challenges
One of the concepts in the renewable power is the
distributed generation. The distributed generation
(DG) is any electric energy source of limited
capacity straight connected to the distribution
network of the electrical system, located in
emplacements near to the centers of load and in
that there is the availability of natural resources,

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where it is consumed by final users (Tan et al,
2013, Rujula, 2009).
The growth of the distributed generation is
expected to be almost 200 % of the installed
power for the period between 2009 and 2016,
driven by the beginning of liberation processes in
electrical systems, the growing of environmental
concern of the society and as a result of the rise of
renewable energy production (Santos et al, 2016).
Unlike the conventional electrical networks,
which generates the power between 100 MW and
1 GW with unidirectional power flow; the
distributed generation produces smaller power,
from 1 kW to 1 MW, connecting to the
distribution network and nearby to final
customers, in which power flow can be bi-
directional (Tan et al, 2014, Rujula, 2009).
The distributed generation offers economical
advantages as the opportunity to reduce the
operating costs of transmission and distribution
networks, and to decrease the environmental costs
and the electricity tariffs (Panwara, 2011). Also, a
large-scale use of renewable distributed energy
sources will lessen the consumption of fossil fuels
and the greenhouse gas emissions and will help to
reduce noise pollution (Khattam et al, 2004).
Instead of the economic and environmental
aspects, the distributed generation, in the
technical aspect, benefits in improving voltage
profile, the power quality and the energy
efficiency (Panwara et al, 2011).
Some technical challenges in penetrating the
distributed generation into power networks are the
difficulty in controlling voltage, the management
of the reactive power, the reduction in the
effectiveness of electrical protections, the
negative impact on the quality power, the
reliability and stability (Khattam et al, 2004 and
Pepermans et al, 2005).
Solar energy
Solar power is the energy created from sunlight or
heat from the sun. The sun is the most abundant
source of energy for earth. Naturally available
solar energy falls on the surface of the globe at
the rate of 120 petawatts, which means that the
amount of energy received from the sun in just
one day can satisfy the aggregate world‫׳‬s energy
demand for more than 20 years ( Chu et al, 2011).
The sun energy can be converted into electricity
or used to heat air, water, or other fluids by solar
power technologies. There are currently two main
types of solar energy technologies: solar thermal
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ISSN: 2085-8817
and solar photovoltaic. The solar thermal converts
sunlight into thermal energy (heat). Most of these
technologies are utilized for space heating or to
heat water. The solar photovoltaic converts the
sunlight directly into electricity using
photovoltaic cells. PV systems can be installed on
rooftops, integrated into building designs and
vehicles, and scaled up to megawatt scale power
plants (ARENA, 2015).
Some constraints on the application of the solar
energy technology are the intermittency and the
dependency on geographical and weather
conditions. Standalone solar power systems will
not generate accessible energy for the noticeable
time portion of the year, and they seem to be
uneconomical (Chu et al, 2011). The variable and
un-continuous characteristics of solar radiation,
and the mismatching of the supply and demand
energy have a critical limit for the power
technology development (Mao et al, 2016).
2. Energy Storage
Importance and Challenge
Looking at some drawbacks of the much
renewable energy regarding the intermittency, the
variable, and un-continuous characteristics, the
mismatching of the supply and demand energy;
the incorporation of the energy storage into the
power system should be the appropriate solution
to enable continuous or alternative operation for
the entire period of the scheme. By using this
device, during sunny days or off-peak periods, the
sun energy can be stored, and the energy can be
retrieved during the night, cloudy days, or on-off
times (Mao et al, 2016).
Currently, the wind and solar powers use the
battery as the energy storage. However, the use of
this energy storage poses several problems. The
battery has low life and contributes to the
environmental pollution in recycling. Indeed, the
battery can not charge and discharge for long time
in heavy-current, and its storage capability is
limited (Qian et al, 2010 ).
Flywheel Energy Storage
The use of flywheel energy storage provides
another backup alternative to improve the energy
supply reliability. The storage systems store
mechanical energy in a rotating flywheel that
converts into electrical energy using an electrical
machine and vice versa (Sebastian et al, 2012).
Flywheel energy storage technology is an
environmentally friendly energy storage
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technology, in recent years. It enters into power
by motor flywheel to store kinetic energy of
rotation, when power is needed, and changes the
flywheel kinetic energy into electricity by
generator, output to an external load (Qian et al,
2010).
Even though possessing higher initial cost than
the battery, the flywheels have a much greater
power density than the batteries, making
competitive in the applications of power storage.
Other features provided by the flywheel storage
include long life cycle, environmentally friendly,
less maintenance required, high depth of
discharge, high charge and discharge cycles, high
round-trip efficiency, and rapid charge and
discharge rates. The flywheels efficiency is very
high and typically ranges from 91 to 96%.
However, regarding the economic standing and
efficiency, it is less than batteries (Mao et al,
2016).
The major components of the flywheel system are
flywheel rotor, electrical machine, bearing, power
electronic and housing, as shown in following
figure (Maclaurin, 2011).
Figure 1. The Components of Flywheel Storage
System (Maclaurin, 2011)
Some studies on Flywheel Energy Storage
A study [16] analyzes a hybrid energy system
performance with photovoltaic (PV) and diesel
systems as the energy sources, equipped with the
flywheel energy storage to store excess energy by
using HOMER software. The results showed that
the combination of PV-diesel-battery- flywheel
ISSN: 2085-8817
hybrid system generates the lowest cost of energy
and the carbon-dioxide emission.
Another study (Maclaurin, 2011) developed a
control strategy of a flywheel system to maximize
the energy available on solar panels using a Split-
Pi DC-DC converter for the rural applications.
The result showed an improvement in the solar
power delivered to the electrical machine. The
proposed control system offers an improvement
on the old one where as soon as insufficient solar
energy, the system switched over to the flywheel
alone supplying the load.
A study (Ye et al, 2009) designed micro flywheel
energy storage for solar power system. It
simulated the controlling system and four
operating modes of solar energy system
containing flywheel battery. The results show that
the flywheel battery resolves the problem of
incapability of solar energy supply at night and
delays the time of supply. The output
characteristics of the photovoltaic cell are
optimized in this system, and the quality and the
reliability of power supply are significantly
improved.
3. The Connection
The Connection Flywheel Energy Storage
In this section, it figures the link of a flywheel
and battery energy storage system to wind and
solar power, obtained in (Qian et al, 2010). The
system comprises of a wind turbine, solar
photovoltaic batteries, controller, battery,
flywheel energy storage and inverters, and AC-
DC load.
Figure 2. Schematic of the link of a combined
flywheel and battery energy storage system to
renewable powers in (Qian et al, 2010)
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In this system, the wind power generation The Connection of Flywheel Energy Storage
converts the wind energy into mechanical energy. into Solar Power
The energy generated is utilized to charge the
In this section, it discusses the link of a flywheel
battery through the controller, through the power energy storage system to a stand-alone solar
inverter to the load. In another hand, photovoltaic system connected to a remote load. Figure 3,
(PV) power generation converts sunlight energy shows an example of the case in the connection of
into electrical energy, then charging the battery, the flywheel energy storage into the solar system
through the inverter which converts DC to AC obtained from (Ye et al, 2009). The system
power to the load. consists of a photovoltaic array, a boost converter,
The inverter system changes the DC battery into two inverters, a PM motor/generator and a high-
a standard 220V-AC, to ensure the regular use speed flywheel.
AC load equipment. The inverter also has
automatic voltage regulator features, which can
enhance the quality of hybrid power supply
system.
The control module is based on the sunlight
intensity, wind speed, and load change, and
consistently works on switching and adjusting the
battery. The module also adjusts the energy
directly to DC or AC load and sends the excess
power to the battery storage. When the capacity
generated fails to meet the load requirement, the Figure 3. Schematic of the connection of a flywheel
energy storage system to a stand-alone PV solar
controller switches the battery power to send to
system in (Ye et al, 2009)
the load, ensuring the continuity and stability of
the system work.
One of the storage systems, the battery, has a role
in the system energy regulation and load
balancing simultaneously. It stores the wind and
photovoltaic energy output into chemical energy
to prepare enough power to use. In the other
storage system, flywheel battery, in the strong
wind or high sunlight intensity, the wind and
solar machines changes the power into a
mechanical flywheel energy to store up, while in
the absence of the wind and sunlight, the role to
supply power is switched to the flywheel storage. Figure 4. The mode of the connection of a flywheel
In the flywheel battery control system, the signal energy storage system to an independent solar system
is based on the output power or wind blade speed in (Ye et al, 2009)
sensor. When the output power is too large or
too high blade speed, the flywheel control output
signals, which are between the flywheel and the There are four modes of the possible power flow
conditions among these system components. In
rotor blade magnetic field interaction, change the
mode 1, no energy is required by the load, and all
wind blades mechanical energy into battery energy generated by the solar power is stored in
flying mechanical energy stored. When the the flywheel. In mode two, the solar energy is
output power is over an hour, through the higher than the load and the surplus is stored in
flywheel control output signals, the signals the flywheel. In mode 3, the solar energy is less
through the flywheel and the magnetic interaction than the load and the flywheel supplements the
between the rotor blades change the mechanical necessary power to match the load. Finally, in
flywheel energy into wind rotor blades mode 4, no solar energy is generated, and the
mechanical energy, then sending electricity from flywheel supplies the load until fully discharged.
the generator.

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4. Conclusion
This paper has discussed the use of flywheel
energy storage for use in the renewable and
distributed generation. The following paragraph is
the conclusion.
The distributed generation based renewable
sources offers the opportunity to decrease the
operating costs, the environmental costs, and the
electricity tariffs, to reduce the consumption of
fossil fuels, the greenhouse gas emissions, and
noise pollution, and to improve the power quality
and the energy efficiency.
However, some potential challenges may appear,
including the intermittency, the variable, and un-
continuous characteristics and the mismatching of
the supply and demand energy. The application of
the energy storage based on flywheel into the
power system should be an appropriate solution in
coping with the challenges. This system has
higher energy density than the batteries, long life
cycle, environmentally friendly, less maintenance
required, high depth of discharge, high charge and
discharge cycles, high round-trip efficiency, and
rapid charge and discharge rates. Several studies
showed that the energy storage based on the
flywheel provides the low cost of energy and
carbon-dioxide emission, resolves the incapability
of solar energy supply at night and the delays of
the time of supply, and improves the quality and
the reliability of power supply.
The connection of the flywheel energy storage
system to a stand-alone solar system has been
presented in this paper. On the system, four
modes of the possible power flow conditions are
proposed. In the first mode, the energy generated
by the solar power is stored in the flywheel as no
energy required by the load. The second mode is a
condition where the solar energy is higher than
the load, in which the power surplus goes to in the
flywheel. In the third mode, at less the solar
energy, the flywheel back-ups the need power to
load. In the last mode, the flywheel supplies the
load until fully discharged as no solar energy is
generated.
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