Flywheel Energy Storage System Design For: Distribution Network

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Flywheel Energy Storage System Design for

Distribution Network
Jiancheng Zhang, a y e Chen, Lijun Cai,and Yuhua Zhao
North China Electric Power University

ABSTRACT-& is necessary to install researchers in the EPRI in America developed,


flywheel energy storage (FES) system in for the first time, a new concept and
distribution nehvork, which can improve technique called Custom Power,The essential
the quality and supplying reliability of of the concept is to realize a new type of
electric power. In this paper, a lOMJ FE3 flexible distribution network by integrating
system is designed, the power of which can modern power electronics techniques,
reach 1Okw. Ihe FES system is composed distribution automation and other techniques
of four parts: 1) Flywheel, 2) Bearing, 3) so that important customers can be provided
MotodGenerator, and 4) AC Power with electric power of high qualily and
Converter. The AC power converter reliability. Energy storage system is a very
consists of two inverters, one fir the important part of this flexible distribution
mator/generator and the other for power nehvork, the purpose of which is to provide a
systems, both of which are controlled means to save energy dunng times when
through a microprocessor controller. The energy is plentiftl and return the energy at
control method is discussed m detail. some urgent times when energy is lacking.
During the storage pend, the AC powerr Different means ofstorage are d y being
mverter makes sine waveform cunmts to studied, such as those using superconductof,
accelerate the flywheel. At the generating condensing air, storage bathim, capacitors
times, the flrJvheel decelemtes and retums and flywheels, of which the most attractive is
the energy to DC bus and in the meantime the superconducting technologies.And yet no
the AC power converter transfbrtn the DC lnx&hm& in the supercionductor research
energy into 50Hz alternating currents fw of can be anticipated in the near future.
power system. The amplitude and the Fiywheel energy storage (FES) system has
phase ofthe AC voltage for distribution such merits as high efficiency, high SED,
systems can be modulated respectively, so long life and no environmed pllutiofi Its
the voltage of distribution network could be applicatim in the distribution netwark will
cantrolled in any case. "be microprocessor make it possible to strictly wnbl and
umtroller uses S P W M method to control monitor the voltage and waveform of the
the AC power converter and a S P W M power system, and the quality and the
control wavdom measured by oscilloscope reliability in power supply will be greatly
is given out. The FES system is superior to improved.
any other energy storage system in that it
has high efficiency, high SED,long life and II. THE COMPONENTS OFTHE FES
no pollution to the environment. The FES
system can be installed at the customer's
SYSTEM
site and does not require any new The FES system is composed of four parts:
transmission facilities. the flywheel that stores energy, the beating
that supports the flywheel, the
motor/generator and the AC power converter
I .INTRODUCTION regulated by a microprocessor controUer. The
With the development in economy and connection of the FES system with the
in technology, an inwxwiqj number in Fig.1. In thu
elcctrk network is indi~t+tc;d
of customers demand higher quality of course of energy storage, the AC power
electric power. In order to meet this demand, converter supplies sine waveform currents for

(c) 2000 IEEE


0-7803-5935-6/00/$10.00 2619
m i n i " flywheel operating speed is 1500
rpm, and the maximum speed is 6000 rpm.

b-u AC POna Ccnwts ?""-- Thus the extractable flywheel energy is


10.104MJ.
I ,

B. TheMagnetic Bearing
hl0t.d-
md Flyahcrl The bearing serves as the support of the
Fwl C&on of a FES syltan
flywheel. Mechanical bearing in the past
cannot be adopted, as it causes a lot of
motor/generator and makes the flywheel fiction and has a short life with high speed.
accelerate with the ever-increasing amplitude The electro-permanent magnetic bearing
and frequency of the AC voltage. At the system is composed of permanent magnets,
generating times, the motor/generator drived which support the weight of the flywheel by
by the AC power converter rotates slower and their repelling fotce, and electromagnets,
slower returning the energy to DC bus, at the which keep the flywheel stable. This sort of
same time, the AC power converter bearing can reduce the friction and lengthen
transforms the DC energy into 50Hz the life span, but the controlling system of
alternating currents and sends to consumer electromagnets is too complex. The current
bus via a transformer. In the following, the ideal bearing is the high-temperature
four parts in the FES system will be discussed superconducting magnetic bearing under
in detail. study. The flywheel is suspended by the
repelling and pulling force, which is
A. TheFlywheeI
generated by the action of obstructing and
As the medium carrying energy, the passing magnetic flux through
flywheel has such merits as high efficiency, superconductor. This type of force can situate
long life, easy to maintain and fiee of the flywheel automaticalIy and then is no
pollution, and, therefore, attracts a great deal need for electricity and complex position-
of attention Extractable flywheel energy is controlling system. Therefore, this type of
expressed as; bearing has such merits as high speed, less
AE=X.J.(wk -0L) (1) fiction, small size and compact structure.
where: However, the h@-temperature
superconductor is very expensive, and liquid
AE = extractable flywheel enexgy nitrogen has to be used for cooling in
J = flywheel moment of inertia
operation so as to keep the superconductive
W, =maxi" flywheel operating speed state. The FES system discussed in this article
..
="mum flywheel operating speed uses a type of bearing assembled by
permanent magnet and oil bearing. 90 percent
The fmulation in (1) illustrates the of the weight of the flywheel is suspended by
advantage of high speed flywheel operation the attracting force of the permanent magnet,
Since extractable energy is proportion to the and the friction of the oil bearing is greatly
square of the operating speed, low mass, high reduced. The oil bearing is used to stabilise
speed units can be designed to provide high the flywheel. This type of bearing allows as a
energy dencities. Therefore, new composite high speed as 10,000 rpm, and needs very
material with high a,/? parameter can little maintenance.
greatly increase the speed of the flywheel,
and accordingly the capacity of the FES C. TheMotor/Generator
system will increase. The optimal material for In the FES system,the exchange of electric
the flywheel is carbon fibre, the linear energy and kinetic energy is done via the
velocity of which can exceed 1000 m/s. The motor/generator. When the flywheel stores
flywheel designed in this article is made of energy, the motor/generator operates as a
steel. Its outer radius is 0.40 m, the inner motor and the flywheel accelerates. When the
radius 0.24 m, the thickness 0.20 m, and the flywheel releases energy, the motodgenerator
inertia 54.60 kgm'. In normal operation, the acts as a generator, and the flywheel

(c) 2000 IEEE


0-7803-59 35 -6/00/$10.00 2620
decelerates. The motor/generator can be passes the transfirmer and goes to the
composed in =went ways.It can be made of distribution network. The microprocessor
the efficient permanent magnetic synchronous controller composed of 80~196 chips
machine, or composed of both the measures the real-time voltage or current of
synchronous generator and the coaxial the power system and constadly sends
asynchronous motor. When designing the signals to control Inverters A and B so that
FES system, we choose the three-phase the FES system can work smoothly. The
squirrel-cage asynchronous machine as the main purpose of the capacitor, C, m Fig.2 is
motodgenerator because this kind of machine to stabilise the DC voltage. Normally, there
is easy to be built for high power and easy to is very little exchange of active power
operate at high speed. It needs no pole- between the capacitor and Inverters A and
position sensors and is easy to be drived by B, therefore, a small electrolytic capacitor
the AC power converter. Based on the will serve the purpose.
controlling techniques of modem power
electronics, the FES system with this type ITI.THE CONTROL METHOD OF THE FES
of motor/generator could operate as a motor, SYSTEM
generator or voltage-regulator according to
the situation of the distribution network. In order to improve the power qual@
and reliability of the distribution network,
D. The AC Power Converter the FES system should be capable of
The AC power converter plays an providing reactive power to the customer
important part m energy transfbrmation and bus according to the power system's
power transmission. It is mainly composed working condition. It should also be able to
of Inverter A, Inverter B and the supply active power in a short period of
microprocessor controller. The connection time. This requires that the controlling
of the three parts is shown in Fig.2. The system in the AC power converter must
detect the distribution network all the time,
m e phase AC and that it must make correct judgement
/ and control the inverters accordingly. The
microprocessor controller measures the

I!ji!j--@
MZ3r

F a 2 ACpcnacraavcrtcr
T b Ptvrpc AC Llnk
voltage phase and amplitude of the
customer bus. The phase signal is used to
keep the phase of Inverter A in line with the
phase of the distribution system. The
amplitude signal is used to regulate the AC
power fiom the DC bus passes Inverter B voltage of Inverter A and decide the
and is transformed into three-phase AC running status of Inverter B. PID cuntrol
power wrth adjustable frequency and method is adopted for the voltage stability
amplitude of voltage, which is used to drive and modified as follows:
the motor/generator. Because the The proportional coefficient is not a
mdor/generator is designed to opemte at a canstant. It varies regularly with the
constant power during storage or release voltage of the measured bus.
period, the frequency and amplitude of the A maximum is set for the integral lest
voltage from Inverter B will have to meet the integral is too big and the stability
the following: of the system is a m e d .
U = const
- (2) When the error (the voltage sag)
0 changes its sign, the integral plays a
reaction role. Thus it is necessary to set
Inverter A mainly serves the purpose of the integral to zero in order to ensure
inverting the DC power into three-phase the stability of the system.
AC power with the frequency being 5OHz A neighbourhood to zero is set to be
and the amplitude and phase of the voltage -
-2% +2%. Any error in this range is
assumed to be zero.
being adjustable. The AC power, then,

0-7803-5935-6/00/$10.00 (c) 2000 IEEE 2621


Therefore, when the voltage of the
measured bus is within 0.98Un-1.02U, the 2MBUm120
controller keeps its old condition. When the
voltage is within 0.80U,-0.98U, the
controller increases the duty ratio of V
Inverter A, and the voltage amplitude W
increases. The FES system supplies reactive
power to the distribution network. When
the voltage is above 1.O2Umthe controller
reduces the duty ratio and the voltage Fig3. ' h e circut ofinvater
amplitude is reduced, then the FES system e2.w/ c 0.00s s . b w IAZ.
takes in reactive power from the .: :.. ... ..
... ... ... ..
!
.
. . i :

distribution network. When the voltage is


lower than O.80Unor when there is a power
cut, the controller opens the switch in Fig. 1,
and, at the same time, gradually reduces the
voltage and frequency of Inverter B in order
to make the FES machine generate power at
1Okw. At this moment, Inverter A
tsansfwms the DC energy into 50Hz sine
Fig.4. ConErollingwaveforms of Phase U m Invater B
AC and sends it to the customer bus. The
FES system can generate electricity for
about 15 minutes.When the interruption of enables advanced power switches, which
power ends or when the distribution voltage can stand high voltage, pass big current and
comes back upwards of O.SOU, the process operate at high fkequmcy. Especially, such
of the power generation of the FES system switches can switch w and cut off the
current through low controlling vohage. It
ends. The switch in Fig.1 is ciosed, and
under the monitoring of the microprocessor will be very easy to actualise such
controller the flywheel accelerates to store technologies as the pulse-width modulation
energy. n e PID voltage stabilising system (PWM), resonant on-of, and high-
resumes its normal work. frequency chopped wave,all of which were
difficult to come true in the past. Inverters
As we can see from the above, this FES A and B use IGBT modules as the switches
system can keep the voltage of the and use SPWM method to produce three
distribution network within 98%Un phase voltages whose frequency, amplitude,
-102%U,,. When the voltage suddenly and phase can be controlled separately.
lowers down and when the distribution Because the microprocessor wntrolla uses
network breaks down for a short time, the the programme to produce SPWM
FES system can supply lOkw power to waveforms, the harmonic is small and the
important customers for about 15 minutes interference can be well resisted. Fig.4
so that the power supply becomes more indicates the tested cantrolling waveforms
reliable. of IGBT of Phase U in Inverter B at 200Hz.
From the wawfoims we can see that the
VI.THE CONTROL METHOD OF THE area of the waveforms gained by the
INVERTERS SPWM method are equivalent to that ofthe
In the FES system, Inverters A and B are sine waveforms. Because the winding of the
very important. They and the flywheel machine stator is inductive, the
microprocessor controller furm the AC current wavdoms are very close to the sine
power converter. The structure of Inverter waveforms. Table 1 is the tested results of
A is identical with that of Inverter B. The the voltage and frequency during the
main circuit, shown in Fig.3, is mainly generating period. We can see from these
composed of six power switches. The data that Inverter 8 controls the
development of modern power electronics motorlgenerator according to the equation
(2).
(c) 2000 IEEE
0-7803-5935-6/001$10.00 LOLL
Table 1. Voltage and frequency results of PI Szabados,B.,and Sch&k,U., ‘Teak power Bi-
Inve~&B,tested at genmithgtimeS ~malTnmsferEmmHighSpeedFl~~1
ta Electrical Regulated Bus voltage systan:
VOLTAGE 0’) FREQUENCY oiz) ApractidProposaifix Vehicutar Technology”,
347.6 200 EEE T~&ons on Enesgy ConverSion,
337.6 190 Vo1.13,No.1, March 1998.
zhngJ. and ckqz., “Applications of
Flywheel storage SMem fw Power System’s
Load Leveling“,prOC.l31d,CUS-EPSA, Gutlng
Zhw, China. November 1997, pgs. 483-486.
“16-3it Embedded controllers”, htel
281.2 1 130
CQrp0nlt.i~1990.
272.0 120
276.2 I 110

I 249.6
235.4
223.4
I 100
90
80
I
207.2 70
I 195.6 60
1 180.0 I 50 1
V .CONCLUSIONS
me voltage quality and the reliability of
power supply can be guaranteed ifthe FES
system can be installed in the distribution
network. Compared with other energy
storage techniques, FES system has such
merits as larlpe SED, hi& efficiency, long
fife span, and fiee of enviranmantal
pollution. The magnetic suspension of the
bearing and the vacuumd space around the
flywheel enable the FES system to work
witb 80% efficiency. ITlw FES unit can be
mstalled underground the customer site. it
takes no space and needs no more new
Eacilities. Further study will make it
possible to design FES unit with hi&
eflicimcy and larspr capacity. If a number
of FES units are installed sepamdy m the
power system, tbe problem of electric
utility load levelling could be solved.

REERENCES
Kirk,.TA. and hand,D.K, “ovapiew of a
Flywheel Stack Eeetgy S-e System”.
proC.23rd Wersoc. Enagy Conv. w.
M., Denver, CO, USA, Jnl31-Aq 5 1988.
Hq&qM.A, “Flywheel Energy Storage fw
Electric utility L4Xd Leveling“, Maryland
20740,USA 1991.
Neimeyer,X,.H., “A High E f f i u e ~ ~Moter
y for
the hAagneticelly Ehqemkd Flywheel Stackn,
M S Thesis, Univ. of MD,1989.

0-7803-5935-6/00/$10.00(c) 2000 IEEE 2623

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