Back to News
CleanTechnicaabout 1 month ago

From Beacon to Amber, Flywheels Missed the Grid

Key Takeaway

Despite their theoretical appeal, flywheels serve as a reminder that not all elegant energy storage solutions achieve commercial grid viability, underscoring the intense competition and market demands for successful deployment.

AI Summary

  • Flywheel energy storage, exemplified by companies like Amber Kinetics, has largely failed to achieve widespread grid adoption despite its mechanical elegance.
  • The article highlights the intense competition and high bar for commercial viability in grid-scale energy storage technologies.
  • For developers and large power consumers, flywheels serve as a cautionary tale of a promising technology that struggled to find its place in electricity markets.

Topics

oemstorage

Article Content

Amber Kinetics crossing my screen today was a reminder that electricity markets are littered with technologies that never quite die. Flywheels are one of those ideas. They are mechanically elegant, grounded in physics everyone understands, and they solve a real problem in principle. Store energy in a spinning mass, pull ... [continued] The post From Beacon to Amber, Flywheels Missed the Grid appeared first on CleanTechnica .