Beacon Power hopes to juggle electricity more efficiently

Bay State startup Beacon Power isn't just another wind / solar / hydroelectric outfit. Oh no, this firm is more concerned with reducing the emissions from the energy plants we already have in place. Put simply, the company's 2,800-pound flywheels are used to store and output energy when needed, a service Beacon's CEO is dubbing "frequency regulation." Essentially, said devices will "match power supply to the grid with power demand from the grid," which curbs energy waste and keeps loads in perfect balance. As it stands, the only disclosed expansion plans include more of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, but if it can rope in enough customers, we reckon the sky's the limit. Video after the jump.

[Thanks, John]

[marty.com.au @ Jun 17th 2008 9:22AM]

First! no actually, only kidding why do idiots do that?
- is that video working for anyone?

[BuddyBoy @ Jun 17th 2008 10:17AM]

Beaten by Bacon!

[thatrotierkid @ Jun 17th 2008 10:33AM]

...like my arteries

[David MacMillan @ Jun 17th 2008 9:27AM]

This is really a much bigger deal than you might think. Energy storage is insanely difficult and inefficient, so inertia-based systems like this one provide an excellent way to keep efficiency high while still providing constant power.

I heard an idea like this that involved gigantic tanks of water...water would be pumped up with turbines when energy use dips, and when it peaks the water would pour back down through a different set of turbines to generate extra power. I'm guessing that flywheels are a heckuvalot easier to work with, though.

Anyone think that you'll eventually have a set of 3 flywheels like this in a power management station in homes?

[Calcifer @ Jun 28th 2008 1:39AM]

The Helms Pumped Storage station here in California operates under those principles you mentioned. During high load times, the upper reservoir drains to the lower and generating electricity using a turbine / generator. When the load is low (and electricity is cheaper), the water is then pumped back up to start the process again. This also creates a net money gain for the company.

This station was at least partially constructed in order to be the off-peak load for the company's nuclear power plant (where I work), which usually runs at full capacity regardless of grid demands.

[Nick @ Jun 18th 2008 6:12AM]

Fly wheels have been undervalued so much. what makes them perfect for beacon is that they release energy faster then any chemical battery's.

Its a shame that there has never been anlot of research and development into fly wheels.

[marty.com.au @ Jun 17th 2008 9:30AM]

Ok, video link works... just not the video on this page...
I still dont get it, you will lose energy when you spin them up, lose it when you convert the spin back to energy (thermodynamics) you cant win either way...

Also, another powerplant is going to say Look, someone is using our energy (these things), and just make more anyway (thus more polution)

am I missing something?

[Joel @ Jun 17th 2008 9:38AM]

It doesn't have to be 100% efficient, just more efficient than letting generators trying to match demand, which according to the video is pretty inefficient.

[m.kozanecki @ Jun 17th 2008 9:43AM]

the idea is its more efficent then what we got currently...

[Mike K @ Jun 17th 2008 10:25AM]

marty,

What they are doing is using energy that would be wasted (unstored) to spin up the fly wheels. For the most part anything greater then demand is wasted power for a power station since they don't store it.

You use this wasted (excess supply) to spin the flywheel, and then when demand is greater then the supply you can generate (without bringing another generator online) you use the stored mechanical energy to spin up another generator instead of coal (or other fuel). They didn't say what the percentage of recovered energy was, so it leaves a big question mark.

The only other option is to continually take generators on or off line (or change their RPM which isn't efficient), this gives the system an elastic generation capability to keep up with variations in demand.

[apeguero @ Jun 17th 2008 11:29AM]

@Mike K: Thanks for the explanation. It makes perfect sence then. It looks like they are using energy to spin the fly wheels but in essence, they're storing most of that energy which is then available at a later time. If that energy didn't spin the fly wheels to be stored then it would just be wasted. Cool!

[thatrotierkid @ Jun 17th 2008 9:37AM]

i thought it said Bacon Power.... mmmm bacon

[Joey @ Jun 17th 2008 11:01AM]

Hahaha, I did, too! I got sad because I thought they were using bacon for other things than human consumption.

[toppgun @ Jun 17th 2008 9:37AM]

did anyone read that as bacon power?

seriously, I havent had breakfast yet.

bacon, is there anything it cant do?

[Faar @ Jun 19th 2008 8:36AM]

Bacon can't fly to the stars.

Other than that its usefulness seems without limits! ;)

[sk @ Jun 17th 2008 9:44AM]

When I first read it I got "Bacon Power" and thought hell yeah.

[Jason @ Jun 17th 2008 9:52AM]

I was just about to post the same thing.

If only we could live in world with BACON POWER...

[BuddyBoy @ Jun 17th 2008 10:05AM]

So weird... First I read it as bacon power... then I opened my lunch....
Bacons Sarnies!!! Alright!

[thatrotierkid @ Jun 17th 2008 9:48AM]

god we are such fat asses

[thatrotierkid @ Jun 17th 2008 10:03AM]

say cool...

cool

now say whip...

whip

now say cool whip...

cool h-whip

[Tim @ Jun 17th 2008 10:36AM]

Wow, these guys are a bunch of con artists and they've got a problem, it's called physics.

Flywheels cannot store much energy. Flywheels will not change the need to match generation to demand. Their flywheels (2800 lbs) are dwarfed by the mass of the steam turbine / generator rotor assembly (hundreds of TONS) which is already essentially a very huge flywheel and integral to every large generating station.

It's like saying that those spinners you've got on your 24s help you get better gas mileage by storing energy. That's why all that money you spent on them is OK, they're not just shiny!

[jared @ Jun 17th 2008 11:04AM]

It looks like they plan on having several hundred of these at each site. All they're looking to do is help with the spikes. Though naturally the proof is in the pudding.

[Javier Guerra @ Jun 17th 2008 11:15AM]

a small wheel spinning a lot faster (a LOT) can respond quicker and better to changes in energy demand.

[David MacMillan @ Jun 17th 2008 1:51PM]

Don't be an idiot. There's no physics problem with this - in fact, if you knew much about physics, you would know that kinetic energy in a rotating system is potentially the MOST efficient energy storage mechanism feasible for this type of application. It sure as heck beats batteries.

Flywheel "batteries" have an extremely high energy density...so high that they can be used to power buses (search wikipedia for Gyrobus). From what I can tell, these cylinders have a radius of about half a meter. So, when you calculate moment of inertia and angular momentum (they are spinning at 16,000 rpm), you find that just one of these at full capacity is storing about 223,000 kJ of energy. Yeah - 223 MEGAJOULES.

"Flywheels cannot store much energy." I'm afraid you just got punked.

[chris o'rourke @ Jun 17th 2008 10:40AM]

mmmm bacon.
Oh. Damn.

Is it just me or is this very similar to what the monks of history use to balance time in terry pratchett's discworld book 'thief of time'?

Regardless very cool that we're finally trying to minimize waste in energy production.

[jared @ Jun 17th 2008 11:01AM]

They use these in hospitals on a pretty regular basis. They make excellent UPS's too as long as you have a diesel generator on standby. If your generator fails then your SOL, like what happened to 365 Main last year and put Amazon, Netflix, etc offline for a few hours. http://earth2tech.com/2007/07/25/365-main-outage-were-flywheels-to-blame/

[kP @ Jun 17th 2008 11:45AM]

It seems that there will be inefficiencies in converting from electircal to mechanical (kinetic) and then back to electrical. I am curious about the losses due to friction, conversion, etc.

It would be interesting to see these mounted into the bases of windmills, receiving torque directly from the wind, and then releasing electricity as needed.

[Booshack @ Jun 17th 2008 12:17PM]

There is no friction, modern flywheels are magnetically levitated in a vacuum. Charging and discharging is also achieved magnetically, so negligible loss if done well.

[Booshack @ Jun 17th 2008 12:17PM]

Why not just use superconducting magnetic energy storage?

[watt @ Jun 17th 2008 12:25PM]

Most superconductors cease to be so under intense magnetic fields.

[watt @ Jun 17th 2008 12:21PM]

They used to use something similar for pulse-generation in high-energy physics labs decades ago. Flywheels are also used in some ancient power-conditioners. The tech's been around forever and it works pretty well. I'm just glad somebody's finally using it.

[RyanA @ Jun 17th 2008 1:39PM]

It would be cool if you could build a car powered by a big flywheel. I wonder what the range would be. You could have a plug in and/or solar panels that would spin it back up while you were at work for the drive home. You would need some serious engineering to be able to turn the car and go up and down hills without the gyroscopic effect trying to keep the car from moving on an axis. Could you imagine a horizontal flywheel directly mounted? The car would want to just stay level with the front wheels off the ground as you went down a hill. LOL.

[David MacMillan @ Jun 17th 2008 2:05PM]

When you don't have to bother with batteries, converting between electrical energy (AC current) and rotation of an axle is actually pretty efficient.

However, keeping the flywheel rotating in a vacuum when it's in a car is going to be a LOT trickier.

[Tim Buck Too @ Jun 17th 2008 2:23PM]

RyanA, why not take advantage of the gyroscopic effects and only have 1 wheel. The machine would keep itself up.

Maybe a 1 wheeled machine with 2 counterrotating flywheels. That way you could steer by slowing and speeding the flywheels to cause the car to turn.

Just be careful, if you run out of spin the whole thing will fall over. OR if something goes wrong the whole car will spin and drill itself into the ground.

Actually the big problem with flywheel powered cars is that the storage is proportional to the speed and mass of the flyweel. If the speed is limited by a material that will not explode due to to the centripetal force then the only way to increase stored energy is to increase the mass.
The math would appear to go into a downward spiral as you try to increase range you increase mass of the flywheel which decreases you range..... So at some point the car is mostly flywheel and ridiculously heavy.

[Kip HT @ Jun 17th 2008 8:11PM]

Mmmm, bacon

[david @ Jun 17th 2008 12:58PM]

Ha! It's funny because that's what I read at first, as well. I had been talking with a friend yesterday about converting biomass to crude oil, and for some reason I read "bacon". My first thought was "how are they going to get sufficient feedstock"?

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Jun 17th 2008 4:25PM]

No pork. It's bEacon not Bacon.

[Christoph @ Jun 20th 2008 6:09AM]

@ Tim Buck Too,

the amount of stored energy increases with the square of the rotational speed - that's why they are using carbon-fiber wheels to allow the weights at the circumference to spin at extreme high speeds of about 18 to 20,000 rpm.

This allows the wheel to be lighter and more responsive - in fact you can take high amounts of energy from the system without time delay.

The guys with the earlier comments are correct with the principle of pumping water to higher reservoirs to generate energy at peak times called Pumped Storage Hydroelectricity (PSH), similar to using flywheels. However, utilizing flywheels has significant advantages:

1. location: need a mountainous, rocky area suitable for water storage with large height differentials. These are mostly found distant from metropolis (important as you see below). Flywheels: install in any warehouse.

2. expense: extremely expensive and timeconsuming to built PSH. Flywheel: no so

3. efficiency: PSH have smaller efficiencies because they convert energy multiple times: electrical - mechanical - pressure - potential -> dynamic and pressure - mechanical - electrical. Every time a art of energy is lost to heat vibrations, etc. This adds up to a high loss. Flywheel: electrical - dynamic -> electrical energy. Much smaller losses

4. scalable: buy one flywheel for your house or thousands for the energy plant.

5. near end user: electrical energy has high loss in transmission over distances. Flywheel farms can be built exactly where the demand is.

Disclosure: I have nothing to do with Beacon, except I own the stock because the technology makes a ton of sense to an engineer like me!

Best of luck. Christoph