Abstract
Renewable energy technology such as solar energy has variable outputs. Examples of variable outputs are situations where there is cloud coverage or there is not a balance between supply and demand. Energy storage, specifically a flywheel, has great potential for smoothing out the power supply from solar panels and trying to balance fluctuating energy. Flywheels have been around for centuries to serve as a means to store energy. A flywheel power plant can power a city, but if the plant were to stop supplying energy, the entire city would be affected. If each house had its own flywheel and one unit were to stop working, the other flywheels would not be affected and would therefore continue running. The primary goal of this research is to design an optimized flywheel and solar panel unit based on the amount of energy production needed. The components optimized are the size and geometry of the flywheel based on energy consumption data of a house in Sacramento, California. According to SMUD, the average yearly energy consumption of a residential home in Sacramento is about 10,000-kilowatt hour. Based on this value, a flywheel made out of either 1026 carbon steel or T1000G/epoxy with the dimensions 36” ID by 48” OD by 48” in height will both be able to reach the energy consumption value so long as there are 129 and 10 units respectively. The flywheel is designed to be coupled with a solar panel. The flywheel stores excess energy from the solar panel and uses it to provide energy to the home when the solar panel cannot provide a sufficient amount.