Industrial Applications of Flywheels

ABSTRACT

This article examines the technical and economic factors behind the application of a flywheel system to an industrial application to alleviate the damaging and costly effects of electrical sags and momentary power interruptions. The article examines an industrial customer who was losing production through sag and momentary power outage events. In a single event, the affected customer was out of action for 11 hours following a sag in the electrical power that tripped four extrusion lines. Previously, industry had considered that it is uneconomical to provide continuous power ride-through for adjustable speed drive equipment in the extruder application. Now industry has a new tool that can be employed to add security to the process through the use of kinetic energy stored in a flywheel. It is very clear from the results of this demonstration project that there are many industrial applications that would gain from this form of low-speed flywheel energy storage system.