The flywheel applications on the different markets
The stability of electrical networks is a crucial necessity which has long been ensured by traditional means of production.
These means of production, apart from the cost they generate, respond in long periods of time, incompatible with what we need today.
From several minutes, the balancing of the networks must now be done in a few seconds.
The steering wheel is the ideal tool for reacting quickly, powerfully and sustainably to help the network manage congestion and frequency regulation problems.
Integration of Renewable Energies
The increase in the penetration rate of renewable energies poses a problem due to the intermittence of production and the difficulty of good forecasting.
Above a certain threshold (around 30%), this penetration rate is limited and network disconnections are often necessary to avoid excess production not absorbed by users and causing frequency instability .
Storage is the solution today to meet this constraint.
Inertial storage alone or combined with other means (hybridization) is the solution that will make it possible to respond to the intermittent nature of renewable energy production and to stabilize the frequency and the voltage that operators need.
Non-interconnected or island networks
De nombreux réseaux électriques dans les îles ou des régions isolées ne sont pas interconnectés aux grands réseaux électriques et sont très souvent alimentés par des moyens de génération fossiles.
Le développement des ENR est la solution pour s’affranchir de ces énergies fossiles mais avec un risque d’instabilité croissante du réseau.
Le stockage par volants d’inertie permet une fois encore de pallier à cette instabilité du réseau et d’assurer une augmentation des ENR à moindre coût et de meilleure performance.
However this technique although it is innovative is bad for the environment because of the petroleum used and the discharges of brine.
It is also a very expensive solution.
Desalination of water is an industrial solution which makes it possible to respond to a problem which is the supply and distribution of drinking water.
The process is simple, seawater is collected and then transformed in a factory to make it drinkable.
This solution notably makes it possible to stop the puncture of underground aquifers
The LEVISYS solution
The desalination market is a particular application of the Flywheel as a hybrid solution with the lithium-ion battery.
The hybrid system allows the optimal functioning of a desalination unit which transforms seawater or brackish water into fresh drinking water thanks to the reverse osmosis process.
It is a vertical application where the flywheel acts as a crucial tool necessary for the optimal functioning of an autonomous desalination unit.
Levisys' solution to improve this market and therefore make it more environmentally friendly is: Autonomous desalination.
This project, carried out in partnership with LG Electronics, is currently being tested in Vietnam.
The autonomous desalination unit uses the reverse osmosis process as it releases far fewer chemical compounds and toxic components compared to all types of existing desalination processes.
In order to reach an optimal state of functioning for the reverse osmosis membrane, a proof of concept ( POC) is currently being tested in the Mekong Delta.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between LG Electronics® the operator MNC manufacturing the desalination unit and LEVISYS®, the supplier of flywheels.
The POC combines solar panels for autonomous electricity production and a hybrid ESS combining batteries from LG Electronics and a flywheel from LEVISYS®, a hybrid ESS which will be responsible for storing energy and stabilizing the current of electricity. .
The development of renewable energies on a local scale but also on a national, European and global scale brings a need for flexibility of increasing importance at the level of the electricity network.
This flexibility formerly available only at the supply level, that is to say producers is now available on the demand side, that is to say consumers in particular through self-consumption.
Whether in a residential or industrial environment, production by photovoltaic panels implies significant variability which is due to the intermittent nature of production by solar energy.
As part of a need to manage energy resources allowing the optimization of self-consumption, storage is an effective and profitable response to these new challenges.
It enables better management of the means of production and sound management, ultimately making it possible to contribute to the flexibility of the network on a larger scale.
