Energy Storage/Conservation and Carbon Emissions Reduction Demonstration Project

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) awarded the Center for Transportation and the Environment (CTE) federal assistance for the management of a project to develop and test a prototype flywheel-‐based energy recovery and storage system in partnership with Test Devices, Inc. (TDI). TDI specializes in the testing of jet engine and power generation turbines, which uses a great deal of electrical power for long periods of time. In fact, in 2007, the company consumed 3,498,500 kW-‐hr of electricity in their operations, which is equivalent to the electricity of 328 households. For this project, CTE and TDI developed and tested a prototype flywheel-‐based energy recovery and storage system. This technology is being developed at TDI’s facilities to capture and reuse the energy necessary for the company’s core process. The new technology and equipment is expected to save approximately 80% of the energy used in the TDI process, reducing total annual consumption of power by approximately 60%, saving approximately two million kilowatt-‐hours annually. Additionally, the energy recycling system will allow TDI and other end users to lower their peak power demand and reduce associated utility demand charges. The use of flywheels in this application is novel and requires significant development work from TDI. Flywheels combine low maintenance costs with very high cycle life with little to no degradation over time, resulting in lifetimes measured in decades. All of these features make flywheels a very attractive option compared to other forms of energy storage, including batteries. Development and deployment of this energy recycling technology will reduce energy consumption during jet engine and stationary turbine development. By reengineering the current inefficient testing process, TDI will reduce risk and time to market of efficiency upgrades of gas turbines across the entire spectrum of applications. Once in place the results from this program will also help other US industries to utilize energy recycling technology to lower domestic energy use and see higher net energy efficiency. The prototype system and results will be used to seek additional resources to carry out full deployment of a system. Ultimately, this innovative technology is expected to be transferable to other testing applications involving energy-‐based cycling within the company as well as throughout the industry