A Real–World Case Study for Smoothing Wind Power Output Using Flywheel Energy Storage

Flywheel systems are fast-acting energy storage solutions that could be effectively utilized to facilitate seamless adoptions for high penetration levels of variable power generation resources. This paper describes a real–world case study for the deployment of a 2 MW flywheel energy storage system to smooth the output power of a remotely located wind farm connected to the electricity grid of Ontario in Canada. Both the flywheel energy storage facility and the wind power plant are monitored and operated by the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) in Ontario. Also, the paper introduces a novel and practical Energy Management Controller (EMC) that has been implemented in the field to achieve the desired renewable smoothing. The performance of the implemented EMC has been investigated via changing three main input parameters: i) storage to wind ratio, ii) smoothing time, and iii) storage duration. To that end, seven case studies are conducted with different EMC input parameters to analyze the impacts of these parameters on the smoothing performance of the flywheel energy storage system.