A ‘hybrid flywheel battery’ system has started operation in Ireland as part of a pilot system service project.
Peter Duffy, president of the Irish Energy Storage Association, told last week’s Energy Storage Global Conference in Brussels the pilot ‘AdD HyStor’ scheme followed a year of testing coordinated by Irish company Schwungrad Energie and state-owned transmission system operator EirGrid.
AdD HyStor, which has received nearly €3 million (US$3.4m) in European Union funding to date, is being developed in association with German companies Adaptive Balancing Power and Freqcon, and the University of Sheffield in the UK.
Duffy said the facility, which incorporates a VRLA battery manufactured by Hitachi Chemical, was needed to strengthen grid stability and ensure Ireland meets its renewable energy targets.
A joint Schwungrad-EirGrid report on the project validated the capability of the flywheel, the battery and the combination of the two technologies as a hybrid to provide several DS3 system service products— including fast frequency response, primary operating reserve, and secondary operating reserve.
“The results indicate that the flywheel/battery hybrid would be suitable for providing fast responding services to grids,” the report said. “The hybrid achieved the required performance targets. For events (defined as when the system frequency fell below 49.5Hz), both the flywheels and batteries achieved full output within 500ms from t=0 (defined as when the frequency fell through 49.8Hz). The flywheels can sustain full output for five minutes and the batteries for more than 20 minutes.”
