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Flywheel energy storage (FES) works by accelerating a rotor (flywheel) to a very high speed and maintaining the energy in the system as rotational energy.
A standalone flywheel developed expressly for energy storage will experience much longer charge and discharge intervals and may be operated over a speed range of greater than 2:1 between charged and discharged states. This type of flywheel system may store more than 100 times more energy than the much larger industrial scale flywheels of the past.
The Physics of Flywheels: Harnessing the Power of Rotational Kinetic Energy At the heart of a flywheel‘s energy storage capabilities lies the fundamental principles of physics, specifically the concepts of rotational kinetic energy and angular momentum.
A 1977 US Department of Energy pamphlet titled Flywheels: Storing Energy as Motion stated a goal of achieving 70 percent efficiency by 1980. By 2010, the Department of the Navy: Energy Fact Book (p.489) was quoting 80–90 percent as a typical figure.