> This is the first time a project of this kind will be used anywhere in the world and ESO believes it could be a “huge step forward” in running a zero-carbon electricity grid.<p>I'm trying to find some stats on this, because flywheel UPS aren't a new idea:<p><a href="https://www.finning.com/en_IE/products/new/power-systems/electric-power-generation/ups-flywheel/18499752.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.finning.com/en_IE/products/new/power-systems/ele...</a><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel_storage_power_system#Power_grid_frequency_control" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel_storage_power_system#...</a>
Does anyone have any real information about this project? The Guardian article is essentially the same as the press releases on both GE's and Statkraft's web sites and says nothing about the scale of the project.
This discussion of a test flywheel installation in California seems a lot more interesting than this article.<p><a href="https://ww2.energy.ca.gov/2019publications/CEC-500-2019-012/CEC-500-2019-012.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://ww2.energy.ca.gov/2019publications/CEC-500-2019-012/...</a>
Does it make sense for a flywheel to have a horizontal axis of rotation, as shown in the concept image? Seems like that would be the hard way, from the standpoint of engineering.
This is a consequence of the UK having little capacity for pumped-storage, i.e. hydro-electric. We don't really have the height, and we have "areas of outstanding natural beauty" that cannot be built in easily, so we need alternatives to store the energy.<p>The rest of the world just builds a dam, creates a new lake, and moves on.
This sounds like a fancy syncon. They have been a thing in power network engineering for a long time.<p>I can believe it has "new features" but the underlying mechanics of a Syncon are not new. This may just be something good, being over sold by a company with an interest in boosting.
<a href="https://www.goodnewsfinland.com/teraloop-secures-eur-2-4-million-grant/" rel="nofollow">https://www.goodnewsfinland.com/teraloop-secures-eur-2-4-mil...</a> - There's a Finnish company called Teraloop who've been chipping away at a more Sci-Fi version involving maglev and evacuated loops.<p>Life gets difficult for this model because the heat induced due to current 'turbulence' and maybe skin effect gets 'stuck' inside the chamber. Fun engineering problems.
Why do we care about keeping frequency stable when more and more products simply put the power through a rectifier to turn it to DC? The lamps all have LED "bulbs". The computers have power bricks.<p>Do we really care if the compressors in the air conditioners and the refrigerators turn at a slightly different rate? Okay, maybe a rapid shift in frequency could be damaging, but a slight drift sounds okay mechanically.<p>Or am I wrong?
I don't really know a lot about energy. Is this similar to something like Energy Vault[0] or is stabilizing the frequency different to storing power for later use.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn5AM75AGvw" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn5AM75AGvw</a>
How big and how fast must a flywheel be to perturb Earth's rotation, in a similar method of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_moment_gyroscope" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_moment_gyroscope</a>
Haven't these been around forever? I went on a tour of a university tokomak in the 80's and they had some giant flywheel for short-burst electrical energy.
Framing a flywheel as a "simulation of a turbine" is really bizarre, unless there's something quite weird about this particular flywheel that the article fails to make clear.
Same article, no registration required. This site touts "Powered by The Guardian" and does not appear to be a scraper:<p><a href="http://www.execreview.com/2020/07/giant-flywheel-project-in-scotland-could-prevent-uk-blackouts/" rel="nofollow">http://www.execreview.com/2020/07/giant-flywheel-project-in-...</a>