Is this *FINALLY* a Break for Flywheel Energy Storage?

[@aussieideasman8498]

Surprised nobody has picked up on the pun - flywheels are revolutionary.

[@vasiliigulevich9202]

Also, "break" in video title.

[@psdaengr911]

I think they are revolting.

[@aussieideasman8498]

@@psdaengr911 Utah - the home of most multi level marketing schemes. Their biggest success is in religion, lol.

[@toyotaprius79]

​@@aussieideasman8498DUM-dumdum-dum-dumb!

[@LittleSpot]

🤣

[@NateWalkingshaw]

Thank you for a great video. So well done and covers a broad range of applications and use cases. A couple of facts on our wheel. The motor on the power side is 40 kw (nominal) 88kw peak. Storage has three different sizes in kWH. 15, 22, and 50. The motors are hot swappable depending on use case. EV fast charging, commercial/industrial or large scale utility. The price in the article highlighted was for a full home systems. Solar, hybrid inverter and hybrid chemical + flywheel storage. Which is why the price point is so high. This wheel will last for 25-years so the levelized cost of storage is exceptionally competitive to the life of almost all chemical batteries. The goal here is to divide the cost over those 25-years vs needing to repurchase chemical batteries that are tough to recycle every 7-10 years. Last part. Chemical batteries like to be in the 80%-20% charge and discharge range. So a 10kWh battery really is a 5ish kWH battery. Flywheels are 0%/100%/0% so the full range with no memory loss. All energy storage has drawbacks and flywheels have plenty. But for the use cases highlighted in this video they do a great job. Again, thank you so much for this we are a passionate team dedicating ourselves to this endeavor and the time you took to cover us without us even knowing Torus meant a lot to the team. So thank you.

[@serversurfer6169]

Oh, you work for Torus? 15, 22, and 50 are the sizes of the flywheel storage? And they can discharge up to 40 kW? This is a residential unit? 😅 How exactly does charging work? What's the minimum power needed for charging, and how long does it take? Can solar and wind be used to power live loads, with excess generation dumped to the flywheel? The mid-size wheel can provide 40kW for ~30min; can it instead provide 1.5kW all night? How well does it handle a variable load, or variable generation? How does the battery fit into all of this? How much do the flywheel units cost? Will we really need a new unit after 25 years, or just a fresh set of bearings for the motor? 🤔

[@NateWalkingshaw]

96-144v, it is an isolated DC bus, DC coupled. It is connected to a Hybrid inverter through MPPT’s. You can put 1watt-88,000watts into the wheel and that can be grid, solar, wind, or hydro. How fast, is really predicated by how big the array of solar, wind or hydro is or how big a grid connection is. Same rules apply on discharge. 1-88kw. But 88kw is peak. It likes 40kw. One good use case for residential outside of home loads is DC-DC fast charging at home. This is a big leap forward. Same with V2G or V2H which comes out of the box with a flywheel because of the nature of the wiring architecture vs an AC coupled 12kw 48amp “fast charger”. You are correct in assuming if you replace the bearing race pack you could put it back in service. Our life cycle testing though has not gone beyond those assumptions. These can be placed in an array. Parallel or Series to accomplish many different jobs for home, grid or commercial/industrial activities. Great questions and I hope this helps.

[@theupshift2190]

Thank you Nate for the kind words and taking the time to leave such an insightful comment. I really enjoyed researching Torus' exciting developments in this field.

[@serversurfer6169]

@@NateWalkingshaw Yes, that’s very helpful, thanks. I had no idea that useful energy could be added to a spinning wheel with as little as a watt of input. So if you have a 5kW source spinning up a 20kWh wheel, how long does that take? I’m guessing that it’s like hydro storage, where you “pump” for extra time to achieve the rated output. So five hours of spin-up might yield four hours of draw-down, both at 5kW? How much power does it lose to friction? Like, how much power is needed to simply maintain a given charge? 🤔 How smoothly can it transition between storing and providing power? What if a 10kW source momentarily becomes a 2kW drain, when a cloud passes over the area? 🤷‍♂️

[@Jimster481]

​@@serversurfer6169I'd like to know this as well. I'm very interested in this technology and wonder if it could be deployed in Florida. I'm building a custom solar grid and would love an alternative to chemical power. Especially for long term usage day in and day out.

[@michiganengineer8621]

20 years ago I looked at flywheel systems for use at work (a TV studio and a separate one for the transmitter). Now both locations had (and have) 200kW diesel generators. However, those take roughly 30 seconds to start and stabilize. We wanted the flywheel system as a whole facility "backup" to give the generators time to come online. The price was enough that we could have purchased another brand new generator for both locations. That said, if the price tag drops a bit more I can see these coming into play more for commercial applications where you need CLEAN power until a generator kicks in. Hospitals, datacenters, cell towers even. Your HOME user is going to want something that will run for a longer time.

[@jimsouthlondon7061]

Lithium battery storage immediate energy delivery

[@michiganengineer8621]

@@jimsouthlondon7061 At the time ANY battery storage, beyond individual UPS's for computers, were prohibitively expensive. Nor did the building have the SPACE to put a few tons of batteries. That flywheel system would be good for a site that doesn't have climate controlled space for a battery bank.

[@cuttinchops]

Always entertaining to see one of us rare breed TV engineer people here on YT. Glad I wasn’t the only one with this light bulb thought! It’s crazy how efficient TXs have gotten these days especially those R&S and gates, randomly thinking on that note.

[@tylermansmann2843]

This was a really informative comment and helpful perspective, thanks for sharing!

[@PraxZimmerman]

Nah man, i do contract work for a lot of data centers and every one that has installed a flywheel hate the stupid things within 2 years. With all the specialized maintenance required they have twice the running cost for 1/20th the storage capacity.

[@realandimaginedxyz]

Yeah, people never take into account long term maintenance, lifetime, safety, redundancy, complexity and so on. Only whats on the sticker, and then make some hype, get clicks. I hate 99% of "tech" news channels with a burning passion, regurgitating random claims blown out of proportion without any basic sanity checks. Hecks the whole hydrogen revolution has now even infested policy makers (also thanks to lobbyists and peoples utopistic image of it due to said shitty channels and articles). The EU is spending billions on this nonsense now too.

[@kevinstroup]

Nobody EVER thinks about maintenance. EVER.

[@GoBayside]

White smooth outside, no visible buttons, minimalist font. it's it i-flywheel.

[@DimebagDarrenLowe]

you are real, you did your own voice over, so i subscribed. Good On You

[@GLHerzberg]

10kWh then 32kWh then 10kWh. Hard to understand what the storage capacity rating really is.

[@theupshift2190]

I believe what they mean here is that over one charge cycle the flywheel can store 10kWh, but over a day of charging and discharging the overall energy stored equates to 32kWh.

[@GLHerzberg]

@@theupshift2190TY

[@VorpalForceField]

I believe is 10kwh per flywheel + 2kwh power wall = total system of 32kwh

[@serversurfer6169]

@@theupshift2190 That's what I was thinking too, but cycling it three times a day seems kinda crazy. I assume most setups will simply charge all day and discharge all night. I guess a wind-only installation might be kinda streaky? 🤷‍♂

[@Juttutin]

I imagine the self-discharge is huge compared to any battery tech. 10kWh is probably what's left after 24h or something.

[@ericlotze7724]

5:50 For that one time purchase. It depends on how often you would swap the battery but there is that to take into account, also round trip efficiency conversion in storage time spans below the self discharge issue (so sub 2 days or so, like overnight HVAC etc). If I remember correctly FES is more efficient than batteries in this regard? Also not measurable in USD per se, but at least for me, the recyclability is a MAJOR selling point.

[@CubbyTech]

I'm guessing that the 10kW systems are basically 'mini' or proof of concept for extreme environments. I suspect that they won't ultimately compete in the home energy space, but should have a nice alternative to the giant grid-tied storage systems like the Megapack, for less money?

[@mikemotorbike4283]

Where they shine is for instance in a hospital battery backup system, stabilizing the grid electricity, as the flywheel absorbs the brunt of the many transients which otherwise accelerate wear of the chemical batteries. Without hospital backup batteries, the let's say 20x daily body scans of the large MRIs etc would overwhelm local grid. Also,up to 20,000 daily city grid noisy transient surges and dips pound the expensive chemical battery acting as a filter, drastically reducing its life. So flywheel absorbs punches from outside and inside, lasting up to 20 years before chem batt replacement.

[@youvebeenspooked]

lol, you are waaaay off with the MRI comment. those are only like 25-70kW, while running. Unless you live in b*mf**k nowhere, off a bootleg diesel generator array on a remote island or something, the grid wouldn't even flinch. and no one is doing 20 MRIs a day in a place like that lmfao

[@mikemotorbike4283]

​@@youvebeenspooked I got this information from an article on a case study. Hospital in example was using battery backup to smooth transients, reduce the hammering on the battery, and deal with chronic neighbourhood brownouts. And then there's frequency regulation. The assertion is that not all cities can afford to keep their old grids up to date. Especially in industrial areas, power is not clean- and hospital equipment requires clean power. Apparently that's what the lead acid batteries backup systems were providing already, so the flywheel extends the life, creating cost savings.

[@youvebeenspooked]

@@mikemotorbike4283 stick to your little motorbikes mikey boy, you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. using battery backup to.. reduce the hammering on the battery? lol, ok....

[@youvebeenspooked]

@@mikemotorbike4283 ps tell me how power is not "clean" hahahah use some technical terms, as if you know any

[@Hawk7886]

​@@mikemotorbike4283flywheels shine in critical settings like hospitals due to the instant transfer time. It has nothing to do with "hammering" or MRIs. They're used to pad the time needed to fire up diesel generators.

[@davysprocket]

1/2 a ton rotating at what rpm? Those bearings better not ever touch down and bind up or you've got a terrifying flying chunk of metal on your hands, and going through the side of your house, and your neighbours... I had a professor in university and we did a capstone engineering project on this exact design challenge and becuase of the safety risk involved we had to specify that the vacuum flywheel enclosure be stored in its own concrete bunker. Enclosure was vacuum tight for 25 years with the rated leakage of the connectors, then drop it into its vault and leave it alone.

[@toddmarshall7573]

I'm surprised that their form factor is about as tall as it is in diameter. The energy is related to the square of the radius and only linearly with the height. Why aren't we seeing a form factor that is a thin large diameter disk...with the mass held out by spokes?

[@jamesburleson1916]

Probably has to do with containment of pieces in a catastrophic failure. My guess is that the vacuum chamber is built a little heavy to keep things together if it all goes bad, and making the flywheel larger in diameter could dramatically increase the cost of that.

[@NBSV1]

You can spin a smaller diameter flywheel faster. And, a smaller diameter takes up less “floor” space. There may be other benefits to a smaller wheel spinning faster. Flywheels in general aren’t a good idea beyond short duration stuff anyway.

[@maxxflyer]

vacuum

[@frescogelato]

Hi, do you have any data on the self-discharge rate when in stand-by? Thanks

[@MrFranklitalien]

I say this with absolute confidence, flywheels are scary as hell when it comes to what happens in case of failure; scaling of such setups imply the inevitable catastrophic break, wouldn't want to be anywhere near it

[@Hawk7886]

Obviously the housing is built to contain such an event. It's easier to use several smaller units instead of one massive unit, for multiple reasons.

[@Jonas-Seiler]

@@Hawk7886 Pump storage is probably even more dangerous tho probably.

[@jonathanwest6564]

Flywheels are very much a special needs thing. I am fascinated with Gyrobus; City transit buses with flywheels. In the 1950's 60's were lead acid batteries didn't have the power storage. And running an overhead power line for the entire bus route could not be justified. So, they had an overhead 3 phase power at the BUS STOP at either 2 or 10km intervals. But it appears that a 3-ton gyroscope causes wear and tear issues when you start to bounce it around.

[@paperburn]

we now have contactless bearing so I wonder if we could revisit that concept

[@jtjames79]

Kind of surprised nobody is combining flywheels with batteries yet. As in literally spin the batteries. Batteries are heavy. In an electric car, regenerative braking is usually very lossy. The motors produce way too much power than the batteries can absorb. If you could dump that into a flywheel that slowly bleeds into the battery, you've just solved two problems.

[@kolbyking2315]

​@@jtjames79A heavy spinning flywheel couldn't be vertical, or else it would cause gyroscopic resistance when the vehicle turns.

[@jtjames79]

@@kolbyking2315 You need more James Burton.

[@bettsmorgan11]

@@jtjames79 that would be great for fast charging your car as well, instantly spin up at a charging station, over the next 30 mins it would charge your battery as you drive.

[@LittleSpot]

in Germany a 8kWh DIY LFP Battery is around 2000€. This price will be going lower in the next 12months. Connecting such a battery to the grid is standard procedure. Fly wheel has no chance against this low lfp prices.

[@walterbrown8694]

Please define the term "Hot Swappable" - Would that include physically moving a device with a large spinning mass ? (This brings to mind events like attempting to replace a vertical gyro in a military aircraft before the spinning mass had stopped.)

[@sportbikeguy9875]

I've gathered a bunch of papers and old video's published and hosted by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories(LLNL), some of which has been removed from the internet, about their flywheel research and just how close they were to a real product. I emailed LLNL about a year ago, and they responded saying they cant talk about it, but they have licensed some of they technology. All I could assume at the time was a private company had taken over the project and probably made some significant progress. there seem to be some key differences between torus and the LLNL technology though. LLNL was spinning much faster, too fast for the rotor to be made of steel, they had a carbon composite rotor. They also had passive contactless magnetic bearings. torus seems to use magnetic assisted bearings. the LLNL had a parasitic loss of less than 1% per day due to the contactless bearing. i have never seen any commercial product actually do this

[@waylonk2453]

Dang, a rotor sitting on a contactless bearing inside a vacuum could certainly save energy for a long time. Exciting stuff, and I hope to see the LLNL research brought to market.

[@mateusz5318]

So basically charging and discharging it at daily basis makes it above 90% efficient energy storage.

[@SleekDiamond41]

Seems like an interesting device for applications using power over night. I.e a 24/7 factory, using solar panels during the day to both run the factory and charge their wheels, then run the factory overnight from the wheels Even for individual homes, a house could be completely independent (theoretically) with a dozen or two decent solar panels and a flywheel to keep everything on overnight (if not for that scary intro price)

[@malk6277]

What's the rate of self discharge (or did I miss this in the video)?

[@WeighedWilson]

They said it only lasted about 65 hours.

[@malk6277]

@@WeighedWilson Aha, thanks. Wouldn't work for me. I don't have the budget to get this and longer term storage.

[@Toastmaster_5000]

I don't understand why the flywheel itself isn't just made of lead. Lead is quite abundant but it's increasingly useless considering how it's toxicity, softness, and low melting point. However, none of that matters when it's in a sealed container where all it has to do is spin and be heavy. Pure iron is cheaper but lead isn't that much more expensive but it is substantially heavier.

[@alexandersmith4796]

Probably bad for the environment to be introducing that much lead. Could leach into water supply if rained on, and the manufacturing of the wheels, if made from lead, probably would not be very good for the workers. It's also relatively soft in comparison to iron or steel, meaning if a wheel was made out of it, it might just tear itself apart. I suppose that could be resolved by embedding pieces of lead within an iron shell, but at that point it would be easier to simply make a slightly bigger/faster flywheel.

[@Toastmaster_5000]

@@alexandersmith4796 It isn't that hard to contain it in a safe way, and it would have to spin terrifyingly fast to tear itself apart. Lead also does not sublimate, so people working with it are not at risk so long as they wear gloves.

[@Hawk7886]

Lead is not nearly strong enough. Modern designs use composites.

[@rpungello]

why stop there? Osmium or bust!

[@swedneck]

The thing i always come back to with flywheels is how we had buses powered by flywheels MORE THAN 50 YEARS AGO that were perfectly usable, at this point we must surely have the technology to even run some small train lines with flywheels!

[@jg-7780]

I know the shortest train line in the UK uses flywheels for its little trains

[@L1n34r]

Even with how dangerous lithium ion batteries are, flywheel storage (with the exception of maybe very large, slow-spinning flywheels) is much more dangerous. Our physics textbook in high school mentioned a physics experiment where some scientists were spinning a trashcan-sized chunk of steel to high rpms, and eventually the steel itself failed, the mass ripped apart, and the chunks almost vanished. They later found that one of them burrowed through the entire building and finally exited through a side door, ripping the door off the hinges and ejecting it into the adjacent parking lot. Another chunk hit the foundation, making the entire multistory building shift a centimeter off of its foundation. Heavy, spinning stuff is no joke. If the bearings wear out, or the material that's spinning ever experiences brittle failure due to hard-to-detect internal stresses or manufacturing defects, whatever building it's housed in is toast. With lithium batteries at least you can have fire suppression systems, house the system outside where it can burn off freely, etc. With flywheel storage, the failure is instant and violent, like the mythbusters cannonball incident. The pieces will bounce off of hills, rip through cars as if they're made of paper, etc.

[@Spacekriek]

I have noticed that Amber Kinetics install their systems in the ground. Worst that can happen then is that you only hear a loud "whump" and the earth shaking a little.

[@YuriGorziza]

I'd like to think this as kind of like nuclear energy. It could be extremely dangerous if the safety is ignored, but it is still highly recommended for energy transition, especially because it can be highly efficient and have a long lifetime.

[@bonaldisillico]

Excellent video!

[@theupshift2190]

Thank you!

[@xpusostomos]

Storing energy in something moving is batshit crazy. What makes sense is storing it in something still... e.g. lifting something really heavy high in the sky, and slowly lowering it to recover the energy. The obvious case is water in a dam, but any kind of heavy weight works.

[@martinum4]

Rotating masses are good for stabilizing network frequencys.

[@xpusostomos]

@@martinum4 you can use your elevated weight to rotate a mass if you want. But storing the energy in the mass is crazy.

[@martinum4]

@@xpusostomos no, it is not. Imagine a Baseload X, now add a surgeload Y, solar inverters are kinda bad at holding frequency under these conditions, rotating masses got inertia and just spin a bit slower while keeping the frequency. Watch the Video of practical Engineering on this topic

[@xpusostomos]

@@martinum4 so... You didn't read my reply above

[@martinum4]

@@xpusostomos and you don't seem to understand that starting something up takes time. Were talking frequency response from fractions of seconds to seconds, no big intervals

[@OriginalJetForMe]

How much noise do they make?

[@youvebeenspooked]

when "nominal", or when the explode in your house filling it with shrapnel?

[@jonathanwest6564]

Gyrobus [City transit bus using a flywheel] are noted advantage of being "Quiet." In Gyrobus's in the 1960's. Though the cost made a lot of noise. Note: recharging was done though an overhead power line at certain stops. The bus stop was powered not the bus route.

[@nnov_tech_chan7891]

I can admit that flywheel storage was heavily researched by Nurbei Gulia in Soviet Union, I have read about this idea from his book. Working prototypes included.

[@michaelbuckers]

4:05 uh, what? A flywheel is a dumb piece of weight, it needs to be heavy and cheap. Why on earth would you make one out of something that's lightweight AND expensive?

[@benprovan]

Seems like a much better commercial storage application than consumer/domestic. Its value is more optimized for the grid than for individual energy independence.

[@AKG58Z]

I want to build one myself.

[@johndoh5182]

Uhh. When you talk about home usage that's one thing. If you talk about grid storage that's a totally different topic because now you can move to different solutions and different battery types, and in sticking with a conversation wrapped around Li-Ion, which isn't good for grid storage, vs. flywheels that's a TOTALLY different topic than say, Redox flow batteries vs. flywheels, where I think flywheels would get CRUSHED in every way. I mean Iron Redox flow batteries are better and will become less costly than pretty much anything else because there are no rare earth metals and the construction of those units isn't that complex. The science took a long time to work out, but the cost of these units are going to drop and SHOULD replace most anything else including Li-Ion. Regardless of the fact that Tesla has convinced some companies to use their Li-Ion grid storage units, Li-Ion shouldn't be used for grid storage. The demand for Li-Ion batteries is already too high.

[@Servant_of_Christ]

I rebuilt my live-aboard sailboat with a NiFe battery bank, works just fine for 130 years or so. Boat living is the future, my yearly cost of living is down to $3500 including everything. I've been playing with the thought of flywheel on a sailboat, but more for the gyroscopic effect and as shifting ballast, both for keeping the boat upright to accept more sail than normal. And thus getting more speed.

[@ironman8257]

video ?Room tour

[@Jonas-Seiler]

As I understand the physics, superconductor powered magnetic suspensions essentially have zero friction, so combined with adequate vacuum tech there might be an avenue for large scale long term capable power storage utilizing flywheels in the near future.

[@taranagnew436]

what's the ROI compaired to solar panels?

[@taranagnew436]

does the megnetic field get contained within the container or does it go out beyond the container, i ask because i have a programmable shunt and can't be near magnets

[@Racing2Learn]

Excellent video, subscribed!

[@Dianaranda123]

Curious if it would help if one where to use an extraordinary heavy material to make the flywheel out of, like say, lead? To store more energy?

[@NBSV1]

Lead isn’t strong enough so would come apart at high speed. Something like tungsten could be a better choice.

[@Dianaranda123]

@@NBSV1 Yeah Tungsten would probably work beter. But any material that is high in mass. That can hold out even at fairly high speeds. Albeit you can still limit the speed, to use cheaper materials such as lead.

[@jamest3188]

just one thing, torus doesnt offer the flywheels for homeowners, only businesses.

[@sloppydoggy9257]

I don't think flywheel energy storage is really ever going to be a good solution...

[@ericlotze7724]

Why? Sure they don’t work well for *seasonal* storage, but in that case Power-to-x and Thermal or Pumped Hydro / Compressed Gas Energy Storage work better. Batteries are cheapest for now, but that takes into account none of the impacts really. They *can* be done cleanly (Sodium Ion Batteries without Cadmium, Cobalt, and rare earth/conflict minerals really, *and* a robust recycling+disposal ecosystem) but as of now short of applications where they MUST be used (Mobile Electronics) they are a pretty bad option. Also Flow Batteries may be a good small scale storage option.

[@Zosu22]

Flywheels seem to be great to add inertia stability to the grid.

[@khanch.6807]

​@@Zosu22 The generators at every single steam turbine has a flywheel attached to them. Flywheels good for energy sinks not for energy storage.

[@mb-3faze]

Sounds more like a mechanical capacitor. 10kWh is hardly a lot for car charging but maybe a solar array (a big solar array) could spin up say 10 devices over the day which would then allow a car to charge, maybe, 80kWhs in 30mins. But $36,000+ is a heck of a lot of money for such convenience. It would probably be cheaper to own two cars and have one on long duration charge (from the solar array) and then just swap vehicles rather than trying to charge just the one car in a short time. I guess it's the bearings that cost so much - and is the flywheel kept in a vaccum?

[@siva2k23]

I'm always passionate about this technology, however, in my mind a question is always asked. if the flywheel reached its full rpm then thats it, it might take a few minutes do that? after that how do you store the energy?

[@Noisy_Cricket]

To me, flywheels should be used for communal energy storage, and modular. By "modular," I mean that flywheels should be huge (like, an 18' diameter or more) and you should be able to split the flywheel's wheel into three parts. This would make maintenance and installation a lot easier.

[@lohikarhu734]

It really surprises me that no one seems to be doing a large diameter flywheel, possibly under the garage floor, or under the basement floor, where the advantage of diameter can be used ... With advances in control and power conversion electronics, the conversion from DC to 50/60Hz can be avoided when charging the flywheel, and conversion to AC 50/60 Hz only needs to be done once...in truth, the use of AC power for most loads in a modern home is grossly wasteful, as it has to go through a power factor correction phase, then conversion to lower DC voltages inside the computer, tv, washing machine, et al...

[@zachansen8293]

You don't put stuff with moving parts in places where you can't service it. Under cement would be a poor choice.

[@KhooTengKwang]

@@zachansen8293 Couldn't the flywheel be built in a room underground with enough space for maintenance? If the design is thought out well enough, it shouldn't be a problem.

[@talinpeacy7222]

Larger diameters require more materials and require lower speeds to keep the angular momentum from fracturing the wheel like a CD on an angle grinder. Big fragment explosion if you do it wrong. Smaller, thicker wheels stay together better at high speeds.

[@animehair05silently88]

​@@talinpeacy7222larger diameter flywheels can have the same energy with the same mass at lower rpms though

[@didierpuzenat7280]

Hope it would resist a seismic event, especially since then the energy stored would be quite needed.

[@robinbinder8658]

25 years are not enough ! although you can probably expect them to actually last longer, if they could stretch to 40/50 with some overhauls they would be viable

[@JeredtheShy]

Eek. Yeah, cost has to come way down. A quick google turns up a cost of $8k to $16k for a typical home solar battery bank, before rebates, so the cost would need halved, and both of them would still be expensive. However, I believe that once this unit gets manufactured in greater volume, then economies of scale would most likely drop that price radically. I think the future of this technology is in other countries, where they don't have lithium deposits and want something else bad enough to pay for it.

[@cognisant307]

As someone looking at solar I'm very interested in this, because I don't need something to replace batteries for long term energy storage, rather I want something that can handle the daily day/night charge/discharge cycle and that isn't going to potentially catch fire and burn down my home. It doesn't even need to last until morning, it just needs to provide power during the peak time of the evening when I'm cooking and using my devices.

[@ericbraun4652]

Look into lifepo4 batteries. They are not fire hazards. They can be fully discharged. They are FAR cheaper than a mechanical solution.

[@TheAtqthe30th]

Yeah it'll be awesome if/when solid state batteries get more into production. Flow redux batteries are neat well for power grid systems.

[@rp-wb6xn]

@@ericbraun4652he is correct those style chemistry batteries are already essentially fireproof even if directly punctured cell. Also still 80%+ capacity after 5000 cycles vs 2-3000 for older lithium ion batteries that will combust every time a cell is punctured or even from dendrites over time.

[@chublez]

Here's the thing. Storing potential energy is just that, Potential energy, if something goes wrong and it all gets out at once its bad. Doesn't matter if it's a flywheel or lead acid or water tower or lithium battery. Lifepo4 are already pretty safe, safer likely than that jug of gas for yer mower you certainly aren't keeping in a fire cabinet like you should. You're scared of li-po batteries like in yer phone, a much less stable/safe chemistry.

[@chrislong3938]

I've always been fascinated by flywheel batteries and ever since I first heard of them, tried to imagine ways to make them viable. This is a great video, BTW! I would think that it wouldn't take much to keep a battery at peak efficiency with occasional 'bumps' to it to keep it at its peak RPM once it's spun up. 36 KW/H is an amazing amount of energy and I had no idea they were this powerful! Do you know what RPM these babies spin at? A half-ton flywheel at 50K RPM would require a huge casing in case of a RUD, to use a SpaceX trope! ;-)

[@jimg8296]

Flywheels also used for launching world class rollercoaster - see The Hulk at universal orlando.

[@HeyChickens]

I'm having a hard time imagining a flywheel that can fit in the back of a pickup truck (I know that weight would be a totally different thing, but still.) being able to store 10 kw worth of energy. What's the fastest speed the outside of the flywheel can safely acheive without falling apart? 300 mph? Since the center is stationary, the average speed of the whole mass would be half of that, 150 mph. 10 kw is a little over 13 horsepower. Would a 13 hp motor really take a full 60 minutes to spin this thing up in a vacuum to 150 mph avg speed? I could certainly be miscalculating something here, but it seems awful difficult to cram 10 kw into a flywheel this size, unless it is filled with gold or mercury 😂

[@GoingtoHecq]

If it were a circle and the outside spun at 300 miles per hour, then the average speed of the mass is above 150mp. If you cut the radius in half you lose more than half the area of the circle. Area of a circle is pi * r².

[@haroldasraz]

Imagine storing energy in 500 m radius flywheel?

[@pwolkowicki]

A flywheel doesn't have that much energy in it. 10kWh FLywheel would be humongous! Few tons at least and a few meters in diameter.

[@hylomane]

Price is too high, they aren't a standalone solution and they self discharge quickly. Sounds like this tech is never going to be mainstream.

[@GoingtoHecq]

Flywheel's are good at storing mechanical motion. They work well in engines, ensuring there is enough force for compression. This is their best scenario.

[@AlanTheBeast100]

It doesn't matter how "smart" the s/w is, 10 kWh is 10 kWh. (Which isn't all that much even discounting losses). Forget the EV owners - 10 kWh is about 10% - 15% of an EV's charge.

[@elduderino7767]

and battery prices are crashing every month, lower than $90/kwh now in bulk EV manufacturers are getting CATL LFP 60kwh batteries for around $4000 - and CATL are saying they are going to drop price by another 25 - 50% by the end of this year and now we have sodium ion batteries rolling out on small EVs in china with large mass production facilities being built out so much R&D in batteries that it's just a matter of time that we see $20 kwh home batteries energy storage is as good as solved - it's building out the energy generation infrastructure that worries me

[@zugi]

I think gravity energy storage is much better solution. You don't have friction loses, no need for precise balancing, no noise, and I'm guessing no need for relatively often bearings replacement. And I don't want to think damage this flywheel would do if bearings seize and that flywheel rips itself and start walking through house, it's like construction wrecking ball.

[@Spacekriek]

Gravitricity is such a company. Their plan is to use old mine shafts (like we have here in South Africa) where they can lower and raise large weights and use them in batteries (i.e. like bullet rounds in a gun cartridge). That makes them much more practical. As for the friction and the bearings, I am pretty sure such a venture will require regular maintenance on those parts, not to mention the inspection of a few thousand metres of very strong steel cables !

[@patrickdegenaar9495]

Do they really last so long? Wont the bearing wear out after a few years?

[@petehiggins33]

The rotor is magnetically suspended so there's no physical contact to wear.

[@pineberry212]

Its really weird seeing the place you work at get showcased. Im just a welder, so I got to see what some of the finished products look like for the first time in this video, like the big battery box focused on commercial buildings. Right now they are working on getting the production facility setup up in salt lake.

[@talinpeacy7222]

...why not a gravity battery with a gearbox? Crank the gear ratio up and add a collapsible strut under the weight to stop it when needed. Not great for large scale use due to scaling issues, but for local power storage over long periods of time with additional options to generate more power by mechanically lifting the weight with leverage... you could probably build it into the side of an elevator shaft for most hospitals and into a small silo for rural areas. The weight doesn't even need to be steel, just a metal box full of compacted rocks/dirt. There are literally dozens of ways to build and charge such a system and they could probably be made pretty cheap.

[@aphaileeja]

Imagine an underground flywheel tower, then turn it into a cone shape, then put it into the ocean, they'll raise water levels but at least we'll have about a living pace of land for maintenance, and the free energy, good luck everyone!

[@Hawk7886]

What

[@sabriath]

wooooow, i'm in the wrong fucking business. A 5 foot diameter, 1 foot width cylinder block of steel flywheel would cost maybe $390 (4 cents per pound), a $200 alternator/motor (brushless or even spring retract), $10 speed light sensor, $70 custom in-house magnetic bearing, $30 for arduino/pi, $50 for custom power board with parts, and maybe $150 for covering and the rest.....that's $900 and they are selling it for $35,000? holy shit!! 97% profit margin is nuts.

[@BenBethelAZ]

$35K? No, the target price is $3500... he's quoting entire system costs with solar and batteries and installation, and several flywheels. Just don't lose balance or you'll have a hunk of metal go through all the walls of your hime. You could also just put a giant boulder on a pulley system and lift it up over a bit of time with solar, then drop it and capture that energy for even less I suppose....

[@MaxBrix]

Liability insurance, machining, labor, payroll taxes, licensing, sales taxes, If you make a profit more taxes, tools, a big truck (maintenance, commercial vehicle insurance), a winch or something to move heavy objects, cement, contractor bonds, inspections, cable, conduit. I think I left some stuff out. You might want to incorporate this business to limit liability in case you get sued or they can take everything you own personally.

[@cgcrosby2]

What an ignorant thing to say. Go on then! Go do it! Or is it too easy for you?

[@sabriath]

@@cgcrosby2 already did it.....15 years ago, but the loss rate was far more than a planetary gear and weight system.

[@SimEon-jt3sr]

How do you get 4c a lb? The bigger more massive the object the bigger the furnace it needs and the amount of energy indeed increases so does shipping and all that....idk metal seems more expensive now. Compare it to something similar. It would probably be like 3k or more

[@tintin_999]

Isn't it more economic to just build power stations and connect them to homes and businesses using and electrical grid?

[@Jwareness]

Maybe if you have the luxury of living in a country that is willing and able to build power stations and expand grid capacity. Here in South Africa, our grid has been crumbling for decades and power station availability continues to fall as stations continuously fail and no one even thinks about building new ones. We have had rolling blackouts for 20 years, virtually daily the past few years, with half the country not having power at times. Solar and battery imports for homes and businesses has become exponential, with $3.5 billion worth just in 2023, including 5GW of solar panels. Since batteries have to be replaced regularly due to many daily cycles, this flywheel product would sell really well here.

[@zodiacfml]

I've been reading about this since a kid 30 years ago. Like nuclear Fusion energy, flywheel storage remains underwhelming. It could be useful if there is a niche to make use of the cycle life, but no only racing cars like F1 cars make use of the high frequency cycle. by the way, batteries are as good for discharging. They can max discharge to about 20minutes.

[@NBSV1]

F1 even quickly moved away from flywheels to batteries once technology improved a bit. Ends up being overly complex for a small return with flywheels.

[@zodiacfml]

@@NBSV1 thanks, i did not know they moved to electronic! flywheel solution is falling behind from batteries due to reliability and complexity. flywheel could remain useful when kinetic wnergy is directly utilized not converted to electric, like the flywheel in all ICE cars

[@Hawk7886]

​@@zodiacfmlflywheels are only present in a percentage of ICE cars and aren't useful for anything like this.

[@unnikrishnanc6610]

Great findings

[@wazza33racer]

Moving parts..........oh that always means maintenance and more things to break.

[@WhyInnovate]

Flywheel transfer energy into stress in the material! Not the best way to store energy! Pretty much everything is better, heat, pressure, chemistry, capacitors!

[@Chris.Davies]

Utter garbage. We learned a lot during the 20th century, and what we learned is that moving parts really suck, and heavy moving parts REALLY suck. If you want to lose all your money, invest in this stupid nonsense.

[@Bregylais]

Didn't know Leon from Resident Evil has a side-hussle in tech-news. (; ... Also, good video, easy sub.

[@albingrahn5576]

I'm wondering how safe these are. How would these hold up in say, an earthquake? Wouldn't want a fast-spinning 500kg+ steel beyblade to come loose and wreck havoc in my home lol

[@Hawk7886]

They're suspended by magnetic bearings in a housing containing no atmosphere. They'd fare better in an earthquake than you would. Step one of the design would be containing the rotor in a catastrophic event.

[@Dan-gs3kg]

Odd, no mention of the largest innovation with TeraLoop

[@tristanjones7735]

You can not store a gallon's worth of fuel based energy into a mechanical based storage device that will work for the residential market. Even 1kw of potential mechanical energy is pretty god damn scary to stand next to.

[@efrahaimrn]

flywheel storage might be good in a zero gravity and vacum environment.. like a space station

[@Veylon]

I don't understand why people are so down on these things. Did none of you play with gyros as a kid? They were so cool. Imagine how awesome it would be to have a giant gyro spinning in your living room all the time. It could be in a glass case so you can see it spin. The designers are really missing the bus by having them all be gray or white when they could have all kinds of bright colors on them. On a related note, have we thought about spring storage? Like how they used to power old clocks?

[@NBSV1]

They’re so down on them because it’s a big jump from a neat toy to something that is usable as a generator. Even just lifting a weight is a better storage of energy. But, that doesn’t have the marketing appeal of flywheels.

[@WeighedWilson]

Garage door springs kill people every year. Now scale that up to 10kw.

[@Hawk7886]

​@@NBSV1flywheels aren't generators, they're batteries.

[@NBSV1]

@@Hawk7886 The expectation is for them to work like a backup generator in the same way a backup bank of batteries would work. They even market battery generators. Besides, if you’re gonna get picky they’re closer to capacitors than batteries. Good for smoothing things out and quick charge/discharge. Not good for deep cycle moderate loads.

[@Hawk7886]

@@NBSV1 no, they're expected to work like batteries. Because that's what they are.

[@sjoerdriberi9268]

great summary on something i was just investigating myself today. i would like to just buy the flywheel and a controller for hopefully much less than 50k…

[@cody4516]

Tom Stanton been real quiet since this dropped

[@DouglasHeyen]

I don’t understand how it isn’t just a huge capacitor. And it takes energy to “charge” it up to operating speed. It can’t produce more than it took to spin it up.

[@pyropulseIXXI]

That is all it is; a battery that stores energy

[@animehair05silently88]

I think that it is kind of like a capacitor, with how fast it can charge and discharge and how it's usually less practical than batteries for bulk energy storage, but it's great for leveling out surges in power use. but batteries also don't give you more energy than you give them when you charge them up?

[@KarenNakamura1]

The bearings are still going to need to be replaced and with a vacuum seal, that won't be cheap.

[@lbnesquik3114]

I think you should have a little more energy in your voice and some background music. I think that would elevate your presentation quite a bit. Also, maybe the shadows cast by your light aren't the most clear. You might want to get some more white spotlights.

[@CStoph1979]

I love hearing hums outside my head all day long. Cant wait.

[@ViciousVinnyD]

Better than the hums inside my head😌

[@gedw99]

Not ce summary. The cost for a hunk of metal, dyno magnets and inverter is completely nuts. There is 5 k of hardware in that and they want 50 k for it. intrigued why anyone goes for it. Also load balancing software is pretty simple code to write. Talking to the bi directional inverter is the hard part. Also I don’t think there are any bidirectional inverters that you can bu yet. That might be where their high cost is but I still think their costs are nuts

[@serversurfer6169]

$50k is for a full install, including a solar array and inverter, on top of the storage. Depending on the size of the array, that's not unreasonable. They probably have fairly large arrays in Utah. 🤔

[@johnjakson444]

Sodium Ion is much better fit for stationary energy storage, and will be totally owned by China.

[@ssing7113]

Yeah. That’s like saying solar powered planes will be great as well Yeah. When mass production ever is. That’s years and years away

[@iceman9678]

Arguably better than batteries of any make.

[@patrickmckowen2999]

Interesting 👍 I guess if Cycle life is more critical that would the one to go with🤔

[@SkashTheKitsune]

flywheels are bad in vehicles period... yes they work but any vibration will effect it and even the slowing down of the flywheel will have the vehicle turn in that direction... let's just keep it to buildings and accept that battery and capacitors are best for cars.

[@phillee2814]

Turning moment can be eliminated by the use of paired contrarotating flywheels, and balance is no more critical than in any ICE, but the big problem is one that you missed. Flywheels only work by being heavy, and increasing the weight of a vehicle is the last thing you want if you have any aspirations towards efficiency. This is also a huge problem for battery-electric vehicles, of course, so need not be an immediate death sentence for the idea. In essence, if you can overcome it for chemical batteries there is no obvious reason why you can't do the same for kinetic storage batteries. The benefits are different in terms of leak down vs almost infinite cycle life, so the way in which they are used would be different as well, but things like magnetic bearings and vacuum containment vessels could improve efficiency quite a bit in all applications. I think there is possible room for them in any short-term energy storage applications, and it is in fixed installations that the technology will be refined, just because it is easier, but mobile uses will increase in viability as the technology improves. Enabling higher speeds allows lighter flywheels to store the same power as heavy ones do at present, so materials matter, as creating the best power-to-weight ratio requires putting as much of the weight as possible near the rim, and that means strong but light materials for hub and spokes, and a very strong bond between them all. At present, that increases the cost, but it does not mean that will always be the case as those materials become less expensive with time and economies of scale. The power-to-weight ratio doesn't matter in fixed installations, which is why it is so much easier.

[@MichaelSkinner-e9j]

Flywheel energy storage can easily and cheaply enable hyper loop systems, along with vertical wind turbines and solar thermal power. The biggest hurdle to a hyper loop is pulling a vacuum. If you have distributed power and storage along that entire corridor, that problem is dealt with. The other issue is materials. You need super strong materials and the seals between them. - You need a combination of composites, alloys, and concrete (protecting it from expansion- which is why they thought of burying it) -For a Hyperloop with flywheels/solar thermal/ vertical wind turbine energy maintaining that vacuum, you just need enough concrete to shield your composites/metal sleeves. Basically, like really big hydrogen storage vessels.

[@matthewjohnson3656]

There are high speed trains all over Asia. Wind resistance is a tiny hindrance to trains, definitely not enough to justify any kind of hyperloop. Elon musk even admitted that the hyper loop was a ploy to stop California from pioneering American high speed trains so he could sell more electric cars

[@AvocadoAfficionado]

Trains are a thing.

[@Hawk7886]

Hyperloop will forever be a myth. It's such a pointless thing to shoot for when bullet trains have existed for decades.

[@RussellFineArt]

Flywheels are great for applications with a lot of space as they’re super large and cost too much.

[@duncanapiyo6412]

I think I have design improvements for flywheels. But I cant implement them.

[@erikmoseid]

I read about using carbon Flywheels, magnetic Barings, spinning at 100,000 RPM in Popular Science in 1973. I always wondered why it never came about.

[@michaelnurse9089]

The carbon fatigues and when it explodes it destroys everything in a 100m radius.

[@kurtleyendecker134]

Carbon fiber composites have tremendous fatigue resistance surpassing that of steel. Further, it isn’t the carbon fiber that fatigues over time but the epoxy or other matrix. Properly manufactured, carbon fiber composite will outperform steel albeit at a significantly higher price. Cost is the issue.

[@Hawk7886]

​@@michaelnurse9089no, it doesn't. They're in use today.

[@no-damn-alias]

That low cycling number, I don't see any benefit. It would be perfect for grid stabilization. Charging and discharging the storage several hundred times a day

[@THESLlCK]

I would never consider flywheels to store weight for a long time. Weight helps a flywheel spin, but at the same time makes it stop. Not a fan. The wear items are insane.

[@Hawk7886]

That's not how they work. Check out the first two Newton's laws. The rotor is in a vacuum chamber suspended on magnetic bearings, bringing the wear items down to zero. The only things to maintain would be the vacuum itself and the electronics.

[@zachansen8293]

I'll take batteries. No moving parts and the prices are coming down fast.

[@Ironclad17]

The second I heard vacuum chamber I knew this was never going to be viable. Thermal batteries just seem so much more practical.

[@waylonk2453]

Ironically, the best insulator for a thermal battery is a vacuum as well.

[@123Goldhunter11]

It's looking like heat batteries are going to be the solution. Maybe not on a small scale, but.........................

[@FredDittrich]

A now deceased friend once told me an interesting story about the Scientific American article describing how someone proposed using the stored rotational energy in a giant disk composed of a large number of high tensile strength wires for practical purposes. He reported inquiring of SA if they had the back issue of the magazine. He reported that they replied that they had destroyed all such back issues due to a glaring problem of high school level physics with the idea. It might be informative if proponents of this idea were to research this rumor and show us the math.

[@Hawk7886]

Flywheels are old tech, they're coming back into prominence due to increased energy density.

[@MikinessAnalog]

Audibly extend the last syllable of every sentenccccce.

[@Nonononono_Ohno]

Flies don't have wheels, they have legs and wings.

[@terenceiutzi4003]

It is 1950s GM technology and they found it didn't work then!

[@olgglo]

vacuum enclosure good for 25 yrs? no way

[@James-ep2bx]

Flywheels sounds closer to capacitors then batteries

[@AutieTortie]

"can be recycled" is not the same as "will be recycled". I prefer solutions that use recycled, not just recyclable, materials.

[@JamesHarris_2006]

What about spaceships.