Fields and forces in flywheel energy storage with high-temperature superconducting bearings

The development of low-loss bearings employing high-temperature superconductors has brought closer the advent of practical flywheel energy storage systems. These systems require magnetic fields and forces for levitation, stabilization, and energy transfer. This paper describes the status of experiments on flywheel energy storage at Argonne National Laboratory and computations in support of that project, in particular computations for the permanent-magnet rotor of the motor-generator that transfers energy to and from the flywheel, for other energy-transfer systems under consideration, and for the levitation and stabilization subsystem