A review of control strategies for flywheel energy storage system and a case study with matrix converter

Energy storage technology is becoming indispensable in the energy and power sector. The flywheel energy storage system (FESS) offers a fast dynamic response, high power and energy densities, high efficiency, good reliability, long lifetime and low maintenance requirements, and is particularly suitable for applications where high power for short-time bursts is demanded. FESS is gaining increasing attention and is regarded as a potential and promising alternative to other forms of energy storage in various applications. The control is crucial to guarantee the FESS performance, however there is a lack of review of FESS control strategies. This paper presents a comprehensive review of FESS control strategies and different power converters and machine types are considered. In addition, considering the advantageous benefits of model predictive control (MPC) and matrix converter (MC), a case study of MPC strategy for the MC-fed permanent magnet synchronous machine for the FESS charging and discharging control is carried out. Simulation results verify the feasibility and effectiveness of this scheme. Finally, discussions are presented and possible future works are also suggested. •A comprehensive review of control strategies of flywheel energy storage system is presented.•A case study of model predictive control of matrix converter-fed flywheel energy storage system is implemented.•Flywheel energy storage system comes around as a promising and competitive solution.•Potential future research work is suggested.