1

Modeling and Control of a Flywheel Energy

Storage system for Uninterruptible Power Supply
Long Zhou, Zhi ping Qi

such as magnetic levitation, composite materials, low-loss

Abstract--Flywheel Energy Storage has attracted new research machinery and power electronic switch. Flywheel stores the
attention recently in applications like power quality, regenerative energy in a mechanical way, and the storage capacity is
braking and uninterruptible power supply (UPS). As a proportional to the moment inertia of the flywheel unit and the
sustainable energy storage method, Flywheel Energy Storage has square of its angular speed. While practical FESS has an
become a direct substitute for batteries in UPS applications.
Inner design of the flywheel unit is shown to illustrate the operation limit, a more accurate energy amount is determined
economical way to construct the system. A comprehensive model by:
1
J (ωmax )
of Flywheel energy storage system (FESS) that bridging the gap
caused by power outage for critical loads in commercial and E flywheel = 2
− ωmin
2
(1)
2
industrial areas is presented. The basic circuit consists of
bidirectional power converter and flywheel unit coupled with
Generally, flywheel can be categorized in high speed
interior permanent magnet synchronous motor (IPMSM). flywheel and low speed flywheel, the former operates at
Maximum torque per ampere (MTPA) and flux weakening are revolutions per minute(rpm) measured in tens of thousands,
used in the control scheme on IPMSM. Detailed block diagrams and the latter measured in thousands[1]. High speed flywheel
of the control scheme are given. The FESS for UPS application is utilizes magnetic levitation and composite materials to achieve
modeled, simulated, and analyzed in MATLAB/SIMULINK highest power density regardless of cost, so this sort of
environment.
flywheel has its application in military and space satellite[2].
Index Terms-- Control systems, DC-AC power conversion, Low speed flywheel uses high tense steel and mechanical
energy storage, flywheels, load flow control, pulse width bearings to reduce the cost and complicity, while the
modulated power converters, permanent magnet motors, power disadvantage is less energy stored and friction losses. Since
system simulation, power quality, uninterruptible power systems. low speed flywheel is a short term energy storage solution, it
has its best use in UPS application to bridge the gap caused by
NOMENCLATURE power outage or voltage sag for sensitive load in manufacture
id , iq The d, q axis stator current. industry and healthcare system. In terms of its unlimited
charge/discharge cycles and low maintenance frequency,
Ld , Lq The d, q axis stator inductance. flywheel is a better choice than traditional batteries in the UPS.
p Number of pole pairs. This paper demonstrates a low speed FESS that operates
from 10000 rpm down to 4000 rpm. The flywheel rotor is
J Moment of inertia.
fabricated with AISI 1045 steel, cold drawn. A built-in Interior
Rs Stator resistance. Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor (IPMSM) mounts
Te Electromagnetic torque. directly on the flywheel shaft. High speed ceramic ball
bearings are utilized to support both ends of the flywheel shaft.
ψ f Rotor permanent magnet flux linkage. A control model of FESS used in UPS is also described in
the paper. In this model, a bi-directional converter controls the
ωr Rotor angular velocity.
energy flowing in and out of the FESS. In normal condition,
ωe Electrical angular velocity. power grid charges the FESS to its rated speed and provides
energy to critical load at the same time. When the grid
Vd , Vq The d, q axis stator voltage experiences a short term power outage, FESS switch in
instantly to bridge the supply gap until the grid recovers from
I. INTRODUCTION failure. Both the charge and discharge are simulated to prove

F lywheel energy storage system (FESS) comes round again the correctness of the control model. All the simulation works
due to the latest developments of relevant technology, are carried out in MATLAB/SIMULINK.

II. FLYWHEEL ENERGY STORAGE SYSTEM IN UPS

Long Zhou is with the Department of Advanced technology of electric
power system, Institute of Electronic Engineering, Beijing, China(e-mail: A. Flywheel design
zhoulong@mail.iee.ac.cn).
Zhi ping Qi is with the Department of Advanced technology of electric
The flywheel unit is mainly composed of rotor, bearing
power system, Institute of Electronic Engineering, Beijing, China e-mail: system, driving motor and housing. An economical and
qzp@mail.iee.ac.cn).

reliable design is shown in Fig.1. The cylindrical rotor and
rotating shaft are fabricated from a single piece of AISI 1045
steel, which has the ultimate tensile strength of 600MPa. In
flywheel’s operating range, the maximum hoop stress acting
upon rotor is 220MPa at the speed of 10000rpm. This result is
within the safety margin of using this material. IPMSM is
mounted on the shaft without any mechanical coupling so as
to make the design compact and reduce possible vibrations.
Ceramic ball bearing has acceptable friction loss and rolling
resistance during flywheel’s speed range, and it is more
reliable than those expensive magnetic bearings[3] in low
speed applications. All the parts above are assembled in a
vacuum housing in order to reduce air drag and contain the
flywheel failure.
Fig. 1. Inner design of flywheel unit.
B. FESS in UPS
Chemical batteries are widely used as the storage unit in a
UPS system, and most of them aims at solving long term
power grid break down problem. However, the majority of
power quality events like voltage sag and outage last only a
few seconds but occur frequently. To achieve the protection
result, chemical battery packed in conventional UPS have to
discharge several times a week, which would severely shorten
the life of batteries. In contrast, FESS has unlimited cycling
times and known state of charge. Thus FESS is suitable to be a
supplement or even replacement of batteries in UPS system to
mitigate continuous power quality events.
The basic circuit of UPS with FESS is shown in Fig. 2.
Power grid provides energy through two power electronic
converters to the critical load. They act as AC/DC rectifier and
DC/AC inverter respectively. The FESS is coupled into the
UPS system via the DC link between two converters. In this
manner, DC bus voltage is tightly regulated by FESS.
There are three operate conditions of the FESS: charge,
stand-by and discharge. In the charging mode, power grid
injects energy into the flywheel through AC/DC rectifier and
bi-directional converter. When flywheel accelerates to the
rated speed, FESS moves into the stand-by mode in which the
2
Fig. 2. Basic circuit diagram of the FESS in UPS.
charging current is kept small to maintain the rated speed. If a
power outage occurs, FESS switches into discharge mode, the
IPMSM works as a generator to provide energy to critical load
through bi-directional power converter and DC/AC inverter.
When power grid recovers from failure, FESS re-enters the
charge mode and ready to handle the next power quality event.
III. SYSTEM MODEL AND CONTROL SCHEMES
Control of the FESS is in essence controlling the motor that
coupled with flywheel. The flywheel is modeled as additional
inertia adding to the rotor of IPMSM. This section gives the
motor model and controlling schemes along with the DC bus
regulation method when FESS operates in discharging mode.
A. IPMSM model
IPMSM is widely used in industrial applications for its high
efficiency, high torque to current ratio, smooth rotor surface
and good dynamic performance. Compared to induction motor
or brushless DC motor, build-in IPMSM can achieve much
higher speed but lower losses and minor vibrations, thus it is
suitable to adopt IPMSM in the FESS.
In the d-q frame that rotating synchronously with electrical
angular velocity ωe, the voltage and electromagnetic torque
equations can be expressed as follows:
Vd = R s i d + Ld di d dt − ω e L q i q (2)
Vq = R s i q + L q di q dt + ω e ( L d i d + ψ f ) ( 3)
Te = 1.5 p[ψ f i q + ( Ld − Lq )i d i q ] (4)
Consider the voltage and current limit constraints, motor
armature current Ia and terminal voltage Va must satisfy the
limits below:
I a = id2 + iq2 ≤ I am (5)
Va = Vd2 + Vq2 ≤ Vam ( 6)
Iam is the maximum allowed continuous armature current
amplitude. Vam is the maximum output voltage amplitude from
the inverter, which depends on DC link voltage. During the
whole process of vector control of IPMSM, Ia and Va should
kept under the limits.
 3

ω r*
Te* ωr
*
V DC

V DC
ωe Ld id* + ωeψ f
f qMTPA
iq* Vq* Vα*
−ωe Lq i q*
id* Vd* V β*
f dMTPA
θe
iq iabc
f qFW
> ω rate ? id
f dFW
p

ωe p
ωr d θr
dt

Fig. 3. Configuration of proposed control model of the FESS. above rated value, the flux weakening method is used to
control the armature current. The magnet flux is weakened by
B. Vector control of IPMSM armature effect of id to keep terminal voltage Va constant at its
The saliency (Ld < Lq) of IPMSM makes reluctance torque maximum amplitude value Vm. (6) is rewritten as (9).
available. So the vector control of IPMSM is more Substitute (2) and (3) into (9), the terminal voltage limit
complicated than surface mount permanent magnet ellipse can be expressed as (10) by neglecting voltage drop on
synchronous motor (SPMSM) which has zero saliency. The Rs.
motor control diagram is shown in Fig. 3, in which the power Vd2 + Vq2 =Vm ≤ Vam (9)
grid outage detection and DC bus regulation is also included.
( Ld i d + ψ f ) + ( L i )
2 2
= (Vm ω e )
2
Since the rated speed of IPMSM used in the paper is q q (10 )
8000rpm, control in constant torque and constant power are
both needed to enable the flywheel to achieve 10000rpm. Due Also considering the current constraint (11), id can be
to the limit of ceramic bearing, no higher speed is allowed. obtained from (12) by substituting (11) into (10). In the
FW
In constant torque region, Maximum Torque per Ampere control model, function fd stands for (12); function
(MTPA) method[4] is used to control the armature current. fq
FW
stands for (11). And Switch 1 is in state 1. It is noted that
The relation between id and iq satisfies the following:
FW
function fq works as the threshold of the limit block that
ψf ψ 2f
id = − + iq 2
( 7) corrects the output of the function fq
MTPA
,which has saturated
2( Lq − Ld ) 4 ( Lq − Ld ) 2
in flux weakening region.
Equation (7) is derived from differentiating (4) with respect to
iq and set it to zero. Substituting (7) into (4), then the id2 + iq2 = I m2 ≤ I am
2
(11)
electromagnetic torque can be expressed by iq as:
(Vm ωe ) − Lq I m − ψ f
2 2 2 2
ψ f Ld ψ f Ld
3
Te = pi q ⎡⎢ ψ 2f + 4( Lq − Ld ) 2 i q2 + ψ f ⎤⎥ (8) id = − 2 2
− 2 2
+( 2 2
)
2
(12 )
4 ⎣ ⎦ Ld − Lq Ld − Lq Ld − Lq
If given the reference torque command Te*, reference Once the reference armature current in d-q frame id* and iq*
armature current in the d-q frame id* and iq* can be obtained are established, the gates pulses of SVPWM can be calculated.
from (7) and (8). In the proposed control model, function The reference d-q voltage components are composed of two
MTPA MTPA
fq stands for (8); function fd stands for (7). And parts: 1) the steady state voltage established by reference
Switch 1 is in state 0 because the motor speed is under 8000 current id* and iq*; 2) the incremental voltage established by PI
rpm. Since solving (8) in real time is not practical, a look-up current controllers. As is shown in (13),(14).
table is implemented to compute iq*.
* *
Vd = R s id − ω e Lq i q +ΔVd
*
(13)
In constant power region, where IPMSM operates at speed
 4

* * *
Vq = R s iq + ω e ( Ld i d + ψ f ) + ΔVq (14 )
SVPWM block generates driving pulses for the bi-
directional converter which is a three phase two level voltage
sourced converter.
C. DC bus regulation
A voltage sensor is placed in the power grid to detect
voltage sag or short term outage. If no power failure event is
detected, Switch 2 is in state 0, which means the FESS
operates in charging or stand-by mode. If sags or outage
occur, Switch 2 is in state 1, which means the FESS works in
discharging mode.
In charging or stand-by mode, the DC bus voltage is
regulated by AC/DC rectifier. The reference torque command
Fig. 5. Electromagnetic torque of IPMSM.
Te*is obtained from the PI speed controller acting on the speed
error (ω*r – ωr). In the discharging mode, FESS regulates the
DC bus voltage by decelerating the flywheel. Te*is obtained
Te = J d ω r dt + Fω r + TL (15)
from PI voltage controller acting on the voltage error (V*DC – When flywheel reaches 8000rpm at 6s, control strategy
VDC). Additionally, a negative gain is needed in the PI voltage turns to flux weakening and IPMSM experienced a reducing
Te in the constant power region, as shown in Fig.5. At 7.8s, the
controller because when the FESS release energy, the current
commanded speed is reached and FESS steps into stand-by
flows from bi-directional converter to the DC/AC inverter[5].
mode, ready to provide energy to critical loads.
DC/AC inverter in the load side is a three phase two level
The effects of FESS in mitigating influence of power sags
VSI. Sinusoidal PWM is implemented to generate the gate and outage is verified in the following simulations. Typically,
pulses. As long as the DC bus is regulated by FESS, the voltage sags in a utility system with reclosing breaker have a
critical load would be protected from voltage sag or outage. duration ranging from a couple of cycles to more than 10
cycles[6]. Thus, a 3-phase fault is created in 1s, lasting for 10
IV. SIMULATION RESULTS cycles, resulting a 50% balanced voltage sag in power grid
Simulations are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the voltage. Additionally, a power outage event lasting 300ms is
proposed control model in Fig. 3. The energy flow in the UPS also created at 1.2s. Fig. 6 shows the resulting 3-phase phase
system with FESS is implemented in MATLAB/SIMULINK, to ground voltages of power grid.
including the charging of FESS and DC bus voltage regulation
during discharging of FESS. It is noted that only a balanced
three phase voltage sag and power outage are simulated. The
IPMSM parameters and UPS technical specifications are
shown in Appendix .
The simulation starts from a steady state with zero flywheel
speed. Then it is charged to 10000rpm and switch to stand-by
mode. When voltage sag or power outage is detected, flywheel
decelerates until the power grid recovers.
Fig. 4 shows the start up process of FESS. During the time 0
to 6s, IPMSM is controlled by MTPA with a constant torque
Te=13 Nm. According to (15), the flywheel accelerates
constantly at 1370 rpm/s, in precondition that the viscous
friction F of the IPMSM is small and no additional load torque.
Fig. 6. Power grid voltage sag and outage

Fig. 7 shows the accurate detection of power grid problems.

By supervising the magnitude of phase to round voltage of
power grid, the detection signal keeps at state 1 as long as the
magnitude is above the tolerable value. In this paper, the
tolerance is set to be 80% of the rated voltage. If any voltage
sags or outage occur, the detection signal instantly goes to
state 0 and commands FESS into service.
Fig. 8 shows the FESS responds to the sags in less than 3
cycles and starts to discharge energy in order to regulate the
DC bus voltage, keeping the critical load from potential
damage caused by power failure. At 1.5s, power grid recovers
from failure, FESS can be controlled either refill its energy to
Fig. 4. Flywheel speed in charging mode.
 5

full state or left uncharged until its depth of discharge is It is clear from these two figures that in the power failure
reached. This simulation adopts the later method and left the event created in Fig. 6, FESS is well controlled to provide
flywheel rotating at 9200rpm. DC bus voltage is regulated at energy to critical load.
508V, as shown in Fig. 9.

Fig. 10. 3-phase voltage of critical load (phase to ground) without FESS.
Fig. 7. Power failure detection signal.

Fig. 11. 3-phase voltage of critical load (phase to ground) with FESS
Fig. 8. Flywheel speed in discharging mode.

V. CONCLUSION
This paper presents a modeling and control method of FESS
in UPS system. A cost effective and reliable flywheel design is
brought forward to prove the possible mass utilization of
FESS in industrial applications. The control algorithm of
FESS is described with detailed block diagram, including the
torque control of IPMSM that driving the flywheel, voltage
sags and outage detection and DC bus regulation. Simulation
results are presented to validate the control strategy. Future
tasks will include control strategy on mitigating unbalanced
voltage sags, parameter variation of IPMSM and experiment
verification of the control methods.

Fig. 9. DC bus voltage

APPENDIX
Fig. 10 and Fig. 11 show the phase to ground voltages The parameters of IPMSM are:
measured in the critical load, without and with the FESS. In −1
Fig. 11, the phase to ground voltage is kept at 180V (rms) with p = 2, Lq = 4.12 mH , Ld = 2.017 mH , k E = 44V 1000 min
T
an acceptable variation at the beginning of the power sags. ψ f = 0.17151Wb, Rs = 0.2Ohms.
However, the voltage will collapse if no FESS is introduced,
as shown in Fig. 10. he rated values of the IPMSM are as follows:
ωr = 8000 rpm, Pr = 11kW , I r = 20 A, Ter = 13 N i m .
 6

2
Combined IPMSM and flywheel rotor inertia is 0.09kg i m .
UPS technical specifications are in Table I.

TABLE I
UPS SPECIFICATIONS

3-phase, 50Hz,
Power grid ratings
380V (phase-phase rms),
3-phase resistive load,
Critical load
311V(phase-phase rms), 10kVA
DC bus voltage 508V
SVPWM switch frequency 2kHz
SPWM switch frequency 5kHz

REFERENCES
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NASA/CR-2006-213862, 2006.
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Ball Bearings versus Active Magnetic Bearings for Flywheel Energy
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fileadmin/documents/white_papers/WP_111_Bearing_Assessment.pdf.
[4] S. Morimoto, M. Sanada, and Y. Takeda, "Wide-speed operation of
interior permanent magnet synchronousmotors with high-performance
current regulator," Industry Applications, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 30,
pp. 920-926, 1994.
[5] Barbara H Kenny and Peter E Kascak, "DC Bus Regulation With a
Flywheel Energy Storage System," NASA, John H. Glenn Research
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211897-REV102PSC–61, 2003.
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Zhou Long was born in Xin jiang, China, on April

9, 1982. He received the B.Sc. degree in
automation from the North China University of
Technology, Beijing, China, in 2000. He is now
pursuing his Ph.D. degree in power system and
automation at the Institute of Electronic
Engineering, CAS, Beijing, China. His research
interests include flywheel energy storage, power
quality in distributed power grid, electric machines
drives and power electronics.

Qi Zhi Ping received her M.Sc. degree from the

Institute of Electronic Engineering, CAS, Beijing,
China, in 1988. She is currently the lead professor
of the Research Group of Distributed Generation
and Energy Storage, the Institute of Electronic
Engineering, CAS, Beijing, China. She is the author
and coauthor of more than 30 papers in the field of
power quality, energy storage and distributed
generation. She is also the holder of 12 patents.
Her research interests include energy storage,
micro-grid, advanced technology in power system, power quality and
distributed generation.