Dive Brief:
- Hawaiian Electric (HECO) and Amber Kinetics announced their partnership yesterday on an innovative new storage pilot to test the capability of a flywheel system.
- The system will be installed on Oahu, where the utility will monitor its operations. Amber Kinetics will build and install the Amber Gen2 Model 25 steel flywheel system, the first commercially available four-hour duration flywheel.
- Flywheels, a rotating mechanical device, use stored kinetic energy energy to allow for fast-start responses.
Dive Insight:
Flywheel storage is not common, but Amber Kinetics and Hawaiian Electric are testing a system on Oahu that would offer a four-hour resource to help the utility meet the state's ambitious 100% renewables goals. Just last week, HECO also announced Oahu's first utility-scale battery storage project as part of that goal.
Amber Kinetics will construct the system at Hawaiian Electric's Campbell Industrial Park generating station on Oahu. The system is a multi-hour energy storage resource the companies say is capable of charging and discharging electricity for multiple duty cycles per day. The flywheel storage will provide renewable firming and peak energy shifting, flexible capacity, and ancillary services like voltage smoothing and frequency response.
The company said its flywheel system will support unlimited cycling with zero capacity loss over a 20-year-plus service life.
The project is jointly funded by HECO and Energy Excelerator. The pair are collaborating on almost a dozen clean energy projects, including a 1-MW behind-the-meter storage project with as Stem Inc. and Bidgely's behavioral demand response tool.
