ELECTRO-MECHANICAL BATTERIES - FUTURE SCOPING AND APPLICATIONS
MINI PROJECT 2015
EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Energy Storage and its Applications MINI PROJECT 2015
Mini Project 2015
DATE AUTHOR 16 April 2015 Thomas Bryden
Thomas Bryden PhD Research Student Centre for Doctoral Training in Energy Storage and its Applications Faculty of Engineering and the Environment University of Southampton Highfield Campus Southampton SO17 1BJ UK
Email: [email protected]
Page 1 Thomas Bryden: Mini Project 2015 - Electro-mechanical Batteries - Future Scoping and Applications MINI PROJECT 2015
1 Contents
Mini Project 2015 ______1 2 Executive Summary ______4 3 Introduction ______5 4 Component Details ______6 4.1 Rotor ______7 4.1.1 Strength ______7 4.1.2 Vibration ______9 4.2 Bearing design ______9 4.3 Enclosure design ______11 4.4 Motor/generator design ______13 5 Commercial Applications ______15 5.1 Transport applications ______16 5.1.1 Purely mechanical systems ______16 5.1.2 GKN Hybrid Power ______17 5.2 Grid connected applications ______17 5.2.1 Uninterruptable Power Supply ______18 5.2.1.1 Active Power ______18 5.2.2 National grid frequency regulation ______19 5.2.2.1 Beacon Power ______20 5.2.2.2 Temporal Power ______21 5.2.3 Isolated grid renewable penetration and frequency regulation ______21 5.2.3.1 ABB______21 5.2.4 Fusion research ______23 6 Current Research ______24 6.1 Current research projects ______24 6.1.1 NASA research______24 6.1.2 Boeing research ______25 6.2 Individual component research ______26
Page 2 Thomas Bryden: Mini Project 2015 - Electro-mechanical Batteries - Future Scoping and Applications MINI PROJECT 2015
6.2.1 Rotor ______26 6.2.2 Bearings ______27 6.2.3 Enclosure ______27 6.2.4 Motor/generator ______28 7 Design Study ______29 7.1 Tesla Model S car ______29 7.2 Boeing 702HP satellite platform ______30 7.3 JR EAST Series 400 electric train ______31 8 Conclusions ______32 9 References ______33 Appendix A ______38 Appendix B ______39 Appendix C ______40 Appendix D ______47 Appendix E ______49 Appendix F ______51
Page 3 Thomas Bryden: Mini Project 2015 - Electro-mechanical Batteries - Future Scoping and Applications EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
2 Executive Summary
A detailed review of Electro-Mechanical Batteries (EMBs) is conducted. Future improvements that have the potential to overcome some of the EMB negative characteristics, namely low specific energy, high self discharge rates and high capital costs, are examined.
The specific energy of an EMB is limited by the maximum tensile strength of the material chosen and so will increase as new stronger, lighter materials are discovered. The self discharge rate of an EMB is currently limited by the bearings and so may be decreased as superconducting bearings are used, Boeing is currently working on an EMB that will lose only 0.9% of its stored energy per hour. The high capital cost is mainly due to the use of expensive materials and the precision manufacturing techniques required.
Initially all the components of an EMB are described and the specification limits determined, seen in Table 1.
Table 1 - EMB specification limits
SPECIFICATION COMPONENT LIMITS Mass: = (Section 4.1.1) Specific Energy Rotor material Volume: = (Section 4.1.1) Specific Power Motor/generator Power rating of motor/generator and control system Active magnetic bearing losses: Ohmic, Eddy current losses, Bearing hysteresis, power for power controller Efficiency Enclosure Proportional to Pressure^3 and Rotational Velocity^2 AC Permanent magnet motor/generator losses: Ohmic, Eddy Motor/generator current losses, hysteresis, power for power controller
Current commercial applications are then reviewed. Commercially, EMBs are available for transport applications and grid connected applications. Grid connected applications include Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS), National grid frequency regulation, Isolated grid renewable penetration and frequency regulation and Fusion research. A table, Table 3, is created comparing the specific energy of a selection of commercially available EMBs.
Current EMB research is then described, including projects at NASA and Boeing as well as detailing research on each of the EMB individual components. The Boeing research project is particularly interesting as superconducting bearings are being used to achieve low self discharge rates. The author also suggests a method using magnetic coupling to enable multiple EMBs to be powered from one motor/generator.
Finally a brief design study is conducted to determine the sizes of EMBs required for various applications. It is stated that an EMB currently could not be used to power a car. For a satellite application it is found that current commercially available EMBs are too heavy however if an EMB was designed specifically for the satellite it may be feasible. For a train application it is determined that EMBs could be used to reuse some of the energy currently lost during braking.
Page 4 Thomas Bryden: Mini Project 2015 - Electro-mechanical Batteries - Future Scoping and Applications INTRODUCTION
3 Introduction
Flywheels have been used to store energy for thousands of years, the earliest known example is the potter’s wheel 1. A flywheel works by storing energy in a rotating mass. Nowadays, flywheels can be attached to a motor/generator to create an EMB for energy storage, technical details of which are discussed in Section 4.
Energy storage is required on a range of scales from small scale storage for handheld devices to large scale storage for national grids. EMBs are currently suitable for transport applications where they are used in regenerative braking systems 2 where their high cycle life makes them very competetive. EMBs are also currently used for frequency regulation on large 3 and small grids 4 where their fast response time enables them to keep the grid frequency within tight tolerance bounds. EMBs are also currently able to provide a few seconds of uninterruptable power supply, which can be used at data centres 5 or on small renewable grids with backup diesel generators.
EMBs are often stated in Energy Storage Technology comparison articles as having the following positive and negative characteristics when compared to other energy storage technologies 6,7,8,9,10 :
• + High specific power • + Long cycle life • + Fast response time • + No toxic components • - Low energy density • - High self discharge • - High capital costs From the Ragone plot in Figure 1 it can be seen that flywheels are in the top left compared to other energy storage technologies, indicating they have high specific power but low specific energy.
Figure 1 - Typical Ragone plot for a selection of energy storage technologies 11
Page 5 Thomas Bryden: Mini Project 2015 - Electro-mechanical Batteries - Future Scoping and Applications COMPONENT DETAILS
4 Component Details
All EMBs consist of the following components, the simplest and most common configuration of these components can be seen in Figure 2:
• Rotor • Bearings • Static • Rotating • Enclosure • Motor/Generator • Stator • Rotor • Control system
Figure 2 - Simplest and most common configuration of EMB components The rotor, motor/generator rotor and rotating section of the magnetic bearings are all rigidly connected together and spin at the same angular velocity. The control system is not shown in Figure 2, the control system provides electricity to and from the motor/generator. The design considerations for each of the 4 components listed above are discussed in the following sections. The influence each of the components has on the specification of the battery such as total efficiency, specific energy and specific power is described.
The energy stored in an EMB is found using Equation 1 and is discussed in Section 4.1.
1 = 2 Equation 1 Where:
• E = Energy stored in EMB (J) • I = Moment of inertia of all rotating parts (kg.m 2) • ω = Angular velocity of rotating parts (rad.s -1)
Page 6 Thomas Bryden: Mini Project 2015 - Electro-mechanical Batteries - Future Scoping and Applications COMPONENT DETAILS
The power obtained from an EMB depends on the motor/generator specifications and is discussed in Section 4.4.
An EMB has three energy loss mechanisms, which determine the overall efficiency, each loss mechanism is discussed in the indicated section 12 :
• Losses in bearings, section 4.2; • Windage, section 4.3; • Losses in motor/generator and control system, section 4.4;
4.1 ROTOR The rotor can be designed using various materials and shapes. The rotor is designed with two failure mechanisms in mind:
• Strength; • Vibration. Designs also consider cost, ease of manufacture and manufacturing tolerances.
The rotor has a large impact on the specific energy of the EMB as the rotor is the main energy storage component. Energy is also be stored in the motor/generator rotor and the rotating magnetic bearings however this energy is negligible compared to the rotor.
Typical rotors have a hub made of metal and a rim made of composites, as seen in Figure 3. The majority of energy is stored in the composite rim 13 .
Figure 3 - Typical rotor design with a metal hub and composite rim 14
4.1.1 Strength The design for strength involves ensuring the centrifugal stress does not exceed the maximum tensile stress in order that the rotor does not fly apart 15 . The material chosen must also have adequate toughness to give crack tolerance. Equations showing the stresses in a rotating cylinder can be seen in Appendix A 16 . In reality the EMB rotor will not be a simple shape and Finite Element Analysis would be used to determine the stresses in the rotor.
The maximum theoretical specific energy densities, in terms of mass ( m) and volume ( v) can be seen in Equation 2 and Equation 317 .
Page 7 Thomas Bryden: Mini Project 2015 - Electro-mechanical Batteries - Future Scoping and Applications COMPONENT DETAILS