$200 Million For Renewables-Friendly Flywheel Energy Storage

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The US government has punted on the renewable energy transition, but private sector investors are picking up the ball and running with it. The latest example is the Illinois investment firm Magnetar Finance, which has just surged $200 million in funding towards the flywheel energy storage innovator Torus Energy.

The Flywheel Of The Past Lives Again

Flywheels have largely fallen off the energy storage news radar in recent years, their latter-day mechanical underpinnings eclipsed by the steady march of new and exotic battery chemistries for both mobile and stationary storage in the modern grid of the 21st century grid. Nevertheless, flywheels have performed common energy storage and control tasks throughout human history in a continuous line of record back to 6,000 BC, from potter’s wheels on up to the automotive industry of today.

“A flywheel comprises a rotating mass that stores kinetic energy. When charging, a torque applied in the direction of rotation accelerates the rotor, increasing its speed and stored energy,” explains Sandia National Laboratory. “When discharging, a braking torque decelerates the rotor, extracting energy while performing useful work.”

The application of flywheel technology to wind and energy storage began to surface on the CleanTechnica radar back in 2010. The pickings have been pretty slim (here’s another example), but the US Department of Energy is still holding a torch for the technology. Despite the abrupt shift in federal energy policy this year, the Energy Department is continuing to support the commercialization of next-generation flywheel systems.

$200 Million For Advanced Energy Storage

Torus Energy is among the flywheel innovators ready to push their technology into the market here and now. The Utah-based startup is launching a hybrid system that connects the mechanical energy storage of advanced flywheel technology to the familiar chemistry of lithium-ion batteries. That approach has already attracted the attention of military clients among others, and that has attracted the new $200 million infusion from Magnatar.

In a blog post on September 9, Torus CEO and co-founder Nate Walkingshaw described the company’s “modular power plant” technology in somewhat flowing terms, though the basic point is the key point. Flywheels are more responsive than conventional batteries, and batteries suppoirt the duration factor.

“The magical combination of  flywheels, batteries, chipsets and cyber security appliances allows us to respond in milliseconds, and stay online with 99.9% uptime,” Walkingshaw said.

“This year we have been deployed by our utility partners  nearly every day to assist them with frequency and voltage support plus assisting our customers with peak shaving, emergency back-up and power quality concerns,” he added.

The Flywheel Difference

If you’re wondering why a lithium-ion battery pack can’t do all the same things all by itself, that’s a good question. As Torus emphasizes, the flywheel adds a quick-response power punch to the reliable timespan provided by lithium-ion batteries, fostering a seamless reaction to the shifting power needs of individual facilities.

“Each unit can sit at the edge of the grid or on-site at a facility and respond to grid signals in milliseconds,” Torus emphasizes.

The units can also be combined into a distributed grid operating system, meaning that it can continue to deliver electricity reliably, regardless of any disruptions in the grid at large. Data centers are among the large scale electricity users in hot pursuit of systems with this kind of “islanding” capability, particularly so in Texas where grid managers are planning to shut off power to data centers during grid emergencies.

“By pioneering the first distributed utility layer, Torus is establishing a critical foundation for a modern, decentralized grid — one that has the potential to reshape the energy economy for decades to come,” Torus reminds everyone.

The Long And Winding Road To The Decarbonized Grid Of The Future

The keywords “distributed” and “decentralized” are the ones to watch in this day and age of upside-down federal energy policy. Rather than relying on the 20th century model of large, centralized fossil fuel and nuclear energy power plants, the Energy Department’s ongoing grid modernization initiative envisions (or envisioned) networks of localized, island-able distribution systems anchored by energy storage along with renewable energy.

Until earlier this year (January 20, to be precise), the Energy Department made wind and solar a focus of federal support within the grid modernization effort, due to their widespread availability, accessibility, and affordability.

That focus was maintained consistently from 2009 to 2016, though Federal policy makers  pivoted into a pursuit of coal jobs from 2017 to 2021 while downplaying the nation’s abundant wind and solar resources. However, during that period the Energy Department did continue to maintain support for the US wind and solar industries alongside its focus on distributed energy resources, and the Agriculture Department continued to fund renewable energy projects for farms and other rural businesses.

From 2021 to 2024 federal energy policy makers took coal off the table to re-focus attention on decarbonization. On January 20 of this year, though, the roller coaster of federal energy policy went completely off the rails. This time around the federal government has withdrawn support for wind and solar energy from the Interior and Agriculture departments as well as the Energy Department.

Wind And Solar Will Rise Again, Eventually

Somewhat weirdly, the Energy Department is still supporting new energy storage technologies that will ultimately help more wind and solar energy surge into the grid and replace fossil energy at individual buildings and other facilities that would otherwise use onsite gas or diesel generators.

Over the summer, for example, the Energy Department disbursed $15 million in funding to support a flow battery project under the umbrella of the startup Quino Energy, a new “salt battery” from the firm Inlyte, and a research program at Binghamton University in New York, aimed at producing a “Bio-Mineralized Lithium Mixed-Metal Phosphate” battery for grid scale energy storage at water treatment plants and other critical facilities.

In addition, this year’s new “American Energy Dominance” policy explicitly supports four forms of renewable energy found in abundance (to varying degrees) throughout different regions of the US: hydropower, geothermal, biomass, and marine energy.

For reasons best known only to themselves, federal policy makers continue to insist that wind and solar energy don’t qualify for taxpayer support. However, the wind and the sun aren’t going away any time soon, and neither is advanced energy storage technology. They will all continue to stick around for the next time US policy shifts back onto the decarbonization track.

Photo (cropped): The US startup Torus Energy combines the ancient principles of flywheel technology with 21st century battery chemistry in one advanced energy storage system (courtesy of Torus Energy)