Description

Generated electrical energy is instantaneously consumed. Over the last several decades, storage approaches have been aggressively pursued, including chemical battery, inertial, magnetic, compressed air, hydrogen (hybrid), and capacitor-based systems. None of these has satisfied the commercial metrics of low maintenance and cost for large-scale energy storage. Inventors at The University of Texas at Austin have devised a conceptual design for an inertial energy storage system with the possible attributes of 1) lower initial costs, 2) lower volume than using compressed air and water storage, and 3) scalability up to large amounts of stored energy.

Benefits

• Simplified thermal management
  
• Simplified maintenance
  
• Eliminates need for active magnetic bearings
  
• Inertial rim balancing
  
• Inertial rim fabrication
  
• Safety
  

Market Potential/Applications

Energy storage for systems that produce electrical energy on a mass scale

Contact:

University of Texas,
Austin, USA
Website : www.otc.utexas.edu