What do folks thing about kinetic flywheel boosters at charging sites? Im thinking it could be a solution in semi rural areas that can still have 3 phase. But thinking that there is a increase chance of failure. There is one location with a unit recently installed. Scotchman Travel Plaza, Rockhill, SC. on the new Noodoe network.
charge boosters
- Thread starter tkmedia
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no idea. Its the first of its kind to be installed. It works but because of all the mechnicals how reliable is it, and what sort of wear and downtime, cost may arise in different conditions. I think its great if its difficult to get the right amount of power from the utility. But would a more traditional freewire unit be that much worse?
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- Aug 15, 2021
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I guess my thought process is that with inevitable friction (and obviously they would minimize it), the unit is going to "leak charge" over time, requiring at least a constant trickle to keep it spinning at its optimal RPM. I don't think this would be a huge concern in a situation where the device was mainly being used for peak shaving, in which case, as your thread title implies, it is mainly being used to provide additional power during a charge session and then is immediately charged back up again, to be used again shortly thereafter. The efficiency loss might not be as noticeable in this scenario as one in which the duty cycle is very low and the station spends most of its time vacant.
It's probably also too soon to know too much about the reliability, but gut feel is that it may not be too bad. A flywheel is a relatively simple device: a shaft, some weight, and a bearing. Connect the shaft to an electric motor (possibly through a gear), with associated DC/DC converter, and you've got your system. Batteries are not mechanically complex, but there is a lot of wiring and cells, each of which could individually fail. So I would not be willing to place a bet on which is more or less reliable, especially given that the flywheel tech is probably first generation and may not yet be mature enough to compare against a more mature battery-based solution.
