In the day of technology, it’s almost hard to remember a simpler time. Like cars, we are taking many strides to go electrical. In the case of renewable energy, we are doing this to sustain our life on Earth, because soon we will run out of coal/oil and when we do, we need to be ready with another source of energy to take over. Luckily, with electricity produced by wind, waves, and the sun, we can do this. Another great stride is the use of flywheels. We will discuss what they are, how they create energy, and the use of them as batteries.
To start, flywheels are wheels that take much force to spin. They store a lot of kinetic energy, but think of it as a “mechanical battery” (Woodford). It can have a large or smaller diameter made from carbon-fiber and it needs a lot of force to start it spinning and a lot of force to stop it spinning, “but it’s storing energy in the form of movement (kinetic energy, in other words) rather than the energy stored in chemical form inside a traditional, electrical battery” (Woodford).
The main thing wrong with batteries are that they wear out. You can get the ‘super’ batteries that take a while to wear out, but eventually they do, depending on how often you use them. The amazing reason to consider flywheels as batteries are the efficiency of them. “With a deficient of more than 80 percent, it would rival the best storage alternatives, and come with a 10-year guarantee. And it would make a perfect complement to an off-grid house with a solar photovoltaic (PV) system, able to fully charge in five hours-within the charging time of most solar PV systems-and store 15 kilowatt-hours of power, enough to run a modest house from sunset to sunrise” (Nelder).
We know that flywheels are efficient and a possibly better option, but how do they work? “Rotating objects have kinetic energy because they have what’s called a moment of inertia and an angular velocity (how fast they’re rotating)” (Woodford). With it rotating, they can sustain energy. With the law of motion, “…a moving object will tend to keep moving unless a force acts on it” (Woodford). Thinking that it will spin forever, they don’t because of friction slowing them down. However, modern flywheels are mounted on less friction bearings and are sealed inside air resistance containers so they don’t lose energy (Woodford).
As a battery, it is essentially the same way of working as said above. “A flywheel is able to capture energy from intermittent energy sources over time, and deliver a continuous supply of uninterrupted power to the grid” which is very sustainable and a better option over time because of the continuous flow (Flywheels). They are even used more often than chemical batteries.
In conclusion, we can see that flywheels are becoming more and more sustainable and used. It’s good because one day we will run out of the coal/oil and we should consider switching our battery storage and usage to not only solar or wind power, but flywheels. With understanding how they are used and how well adjusting they can be to this technological world, then it’s easier to see how sustainable they can be.
References
Flywheels. (n.d.). Retrieved June 15, 2017, from http://energystorage.org/energy-storage/storage-technology-comparisons/thermal
Nelder, C. (2013, April 10). Turn Up the Juice: New Flywheel Raises Hopes for Energy Storage Breakthrough. Retrieved June 15, 2017, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-flywheel-design/
Woodford, C. (2017, April 03). How do flywheels store energy? Retrieved June 15, 2017, from http://www.explainthatstuff.com/flywheels.html
