Amber Kinetics, Inc. Flywheel Energy Storage Demonstration Project Description
July 15, 2013
U.S. Department of Energy
Amber Kinetics is developing a flywheel system from sub-scale research prototype to full-scale mechanical flywheel battery and will conduct a commercial-scale demonstration. The goal is to deliver a cost-effective prototype flywheel system that can be grid connected and electrically charged and discharged. The flywheel stores energy in a spinning rotor that is connected to an electric motor that converts electrical energy into mechanical energy. To recover the energy, the motor is electrically reversed and used as a generator to slow down the flywheel converting the mechanical energy back into electrical energy. Amber Kinetics will improve the traditional flywheel system by engineering breakthroughs in three areas, resulting in higher efficiency and radically reduced cost: bearings, low-cost rotor, and high-efficiency motor generator. This technology can also be used to optimize existing infrastructure.
