Near Zero: Mechanical Flywheel Battery (UC Berkeley)

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn

NearZero

The Near Zero flywheel battery consists of a magnetically-levitated flywheel, combined with a motor, that can store and output energy like a traditional electrochemical cell. However, this design has almost no frictional losses, uses very little power in the magnetic levitation of the flywheel, and combined with high efficiency electronics, drastically outperforms chemical batteries in many ways. This flywheel battery is envisioned to replace inefficient and environmentally unsound use of “peaker plants” – power plants that only run when there is high demand for electricity.

More Winners

MobileWorks (UC Berkeley)

MobileWorks provides a platform that gives underemployed and impoverished individuals in the developing world the ability to earn supplemental income by doing work through their

Read More »

Lifenik (UC Berkeley)

In the United States, suicide rates have increased 60% over the last 50 years, depression is predicted to be the second-most prevalent health condition in

Read More »

© 2021 Blum Center for Developing Economies

Design by Joseph Kim