Jane Lai
FORMULA 1 team Williams F1 is offering Shenzhen Metro Group the chance to integrate its prototype energy storage machine into the uncompleted Metro system to help save energy.
Williams F1, which was established in 1977 and has taken the F1 crown 16 times over 30 years, produced its own small mobile flywheel energy storage system for racing cars a few years ago.
When the machine is integrated into a racing car, energy generated whenever the driver brakes can be stored in the machine.When the car accelerates, the energy can be converted to power.
Unlike the small version, the prototype Williams F1 is offering is a large, high-powered electromechanical flywheel system, using patented technology. The team is developing the machine at its Williams Technology Center (WTC) at the Qatar Science & Technology Park in Qatar.
Such a machine will deliver increased efficiency and reliability in rapid-transit, smart grids and other high-power and high-cycle applications, Doug MacLennan, sales and marketing manager of WTC s energy systems department, said yesterday.
For a train, it could generate energy whenever it decelerates to stop at a station and use the energy when it accelerates, MacLennan said.
Shenzhen Metro No. 3 Line Investment Co. is very interested in such technologies, said Xiao Shixiong, vice general manager of the company, at a meeting with MacLennan yesterday.
The company is a subsidiary of Shenzhen Metro Group. The company, which is constructing Shenzhen Metro lines 3, 6, 9 and 12, would like to be an experimental venue for Williams F1 s large flywheel energy storage machine once the prototype goes into production and the technical specifications are available, Xiao said.
In another meeting, the Shenzhen Research and Design Institute of the Beijing-based China Academy of Railway Sciences also showed a profound interest in the prototype system.
If the new flywheel energy storage machine can help save a lot of energy and the overall cost is reasonable, why not go for it? said Hou Qinghua, head of the institute.
But Williams F1 needed to do comprehensive research into the technical specifications of batteries, capacitors and flywheel energy storage machines and offer companies a comparison between the strengths and weaknesses of the three energy storage systems, Hou said.
