Dive Brief:
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The global market for flywheel energy storage could reach $477.8 million by 2024, according to a report from Research and Markets.
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The report identified North America as the largest market for flywheel storage applications in 2015 with a share of more than 77%.
- In terms of industry sectors, the report says data centers are the biggest single market, with 16% share in 2015.
Dive Insight:
Flywheels may seem like a technology for niche markets. Some markets, like the Midcontinent ISO have rules that are favorable for flywheels, but flywheel applications are poised to grow significantly, according to Research and Markets’ new report.
Flywheels store and regulate electricity by spinning continuously, absorbing and discharging energy, which makes them well suited for frequency regulation applications.
That is particularly important in technology applications, such as data centers where faultless, uninterruptible power is crucial to operations.
General Electric in September added flywheel technology to its storage offerings for critical facilities such as data centers.