Project description
Flywheel technology could solve renewable energy’s storage problem
Reliable energy storage remains the weak link for clean energies: without a way to save electricity and heat for later use, intermittent renewable energies will struggle to outcompete fossil fuels. Pumped-storage hydroelectricity makes up the largest part of the world’s energy storage, but new projects are hard to site and entail huge upfront costs. Batteries could support the growth of renewables, yet they cannot scale up to meet the demands of grid-scale storage. The EU-funded Teraloop ESS project aims to bring to the market an innovatively configured system for efficient grid-scale storage with a minimised visual and environmental footprint. The highly scalable kinetic energy storage system will draw upon proven technologies (flywheel energy storage, magnetic levitation and brushless motors).
Objective
Electrical energy storage (EES) is a fundamental enabler to the deployment of renewable energy and provides cost-savings in other markets. The market is projected to grow from 1.1 GW in 2016 to 21.6 GW in 2025. Pumped hydroelectric storage (PHS) accounts for 98% of global energy storage, however they are geographically limited, environmentally impactful and require huge upfront costs. Other state-of-the-art solutions available in the market i.e. batteries for EES cannot scale-up to meet the demands on the electrical grids and networks. This results in an underutilisation or ineffective use of renewable energy sources. Teraloop has created a highly scalable, kinetic energy storage system, which draws upon proven technologies (flywheel energy storage, magnetic levitation and brushless motors.), innovatively configured for grid-scale storage with minimal visual and environmental footprint. The scalability of the product results in applicability from voltage support to load following.
The development roadmap comprises three major phases: Phase1: Market & technical feasibility: Utilise SME instrument phase 1 funding to complete market analysis – define requirements and favourable market conditions. Find a demonstrator partner and explore engineering requirements. Phase2: An industrial demonstrator of 10MW Teraloop: Utilise SME instrument phase2 funding to find suitable stakeholders and subcontractors. Build, run and test Teraloop. Expand IP, communicate and disseminate phase 2 activities. Phase3: Commercialise 10MW Teraloop and develop 100MW Teraloop: Teraloop recognises their ambitious vision and mission will only be delivered through strategic partnerships with investors, technology companies, the energy storage industry and the public sector.
Fields of science
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsrenewable energy
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectrical engineeringpower engineeringelectric power distribution
- social scienceseconomics and businesseconomicssustainable economy
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
02130 ESPOO
Finland
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.