Proc.

of the 2nd International Conference on Electrical, Communication and Computer Engineering (ICECCE)
12-13 June 2020, Istanbul, Turkey

Flywheel-Based Ultra-Fast On-Route Charging

System for Public E-Buses
Onur ELMA Hossam A. GABBER
Faculty of Energy Systems and Nuclear Science Faculty of Energy Systems and Nuclear Science
Ontario Tech University, Ontario Tech University,
Oshawa, ON, Canada Oshawa, ON, Canada
Department of Electrical Engineering [email protected]
Yildiz Technical University
Istanbul,Turkey
[email protected]

Abstract— Electric vehicles are becoming widespread not harmonic distortions because of the AC/DC rectifying
only in personal use but also in public transportation. In order process and these harmonics cause power quality issues on
for electric buses to complete their routes, they need larger the grid. As in [1], the impact of electric vehicle charging
capacity batteries. It is crucial that these batteries can supply station on power quality problems has been analyzed. As in
the necessary energy in operation. On-route chargers are a [5], these type of impacts of charging stations on the power
potential solution for reducing the required battery sizes in grid were analyzed for Bangladesh. In another study, the
electric buses. To achieve this, high power is needed instantly. effects of uncoordinated EV chargers have been analyzed
However, this instantaneous power demand has negative and it was suggested that the V2G application use EVs for
effects on the grid. In this study, a flywheel storage system is
stabilization of grid [2]. In addition, local energy sources
used in order to reduce the peak demand caused by on-route
such as renewable resources are also used in reducing the
fast-charging stations on the grid side. The proposed system
has been analyzed and a 66% reduction in peak demand has impact of fast charging stations on the grid [6].
been achieved. In this study, a flywheel-based ultra-fast charging system
has been proposed to reduce the effects of the peak power
Keywords— Electric vehicles, Ultra-fast charging, E-buses, demand caused by the on-route charging of the E-buses. The
Flywheel, Demand side management proposed system aims to charge the battery of e-bus by the
I. INTRODUCTION flywheel while picking up/dropping off the passengers at the
bus stop, and then to charge the flywheel from the grid with
Today, transportation is one of the largest sources of lower power until the next bus comes.
carbon emissions. Therefore, both environmental factors and
technological improvements have increased the interest in II. ULTRA FAST CHARGERS
electric vehicles (EVs). EVs should be preferred not only for Advances in the field of battery and power electronics
personal use but also for public transportation. However, have enabled reduction of vehicle charging time, which was
most buses, which are an important part of public one of the most important disadvantages for electric vehicles.
transportation, use diesel engines. These buses cause noise To achieve this goal this, the fast chargers which have high
pollution in cities as well as air pollution. Many local power rates have been developed. These off-board high
authorities aiming to reduce carbon emissions have put power chargers are called ultra-fast chargers and/or extreme
converting buses into electricity on the agenda. The chargers. New standards are needed for equipment that can
important challenge here is that the buses require charging provide this charging power. For this purpose, CHAdeMO,
infrastructure to work on their routes. These chargers are which is the one of the fast charger standard associations, has
called ‘on-route charging’ which need ultra-high power. developed a next-gen ultra high power charging standard [7].
High demand caused by these chargers have negative effects Also, the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) has been
on the grid [1], [2]. working on ultra- fast charging standard which will be up to
Fast charges are called level 3 in the general 1-1.2 MW [8]. Another charge connection standard
classification and use DC current. However, the DC chargers developed for e-buses is OppCHARGE and it is becoming
producing power in the range of 50-150 kW for the fast more widespread in Europe [9]. Pantograph, a kind of
charging requirements of personal cars cannot provide connector, is used to reach higher powers, especially in
enough power for electric buses to be charged in a very charging systems for public transportation. These connectors
limited period. For this reason, studies are being carried out for overhead chargers fall into three different types:
with the aim of updating current fast-charging standards, and downward pantograph, upward pantograph, and side
it is recommended to increase the instantaneous power limits insertion. There are different options for charging electric
up to 1 MW for E-bus [3]. Reducing the effects of these high buses used in public transportation. These options are given
power requirements on the grid is an important field of study. in Figure 1.
The EV charging stations have negative effects on the grid
parameters such as stability, demand balance, system assets,
harmonics, and system losses [4]. DC fast chargers produce

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 Fig. 3. The CCB type bidirectional converter

Fig. 1. Charging options for E-buses B. Flywheel Energy Storage (FES)

As seen in Figure 1, from these options, on-route chargers Flywheels store energy as kinetic energy, which works by
allow buses to complete their routes with less battery accelerating a rotating mass to high speed and using the
capacity, thus providing a more efficient system. That is why momentum to generate electricity when needed. Flywheels
on-route chargers are preferred in many public transportation have higher efficiency and have a higher life cycle than
projects. However, the peak demand caused by on-route batteries with little decrease in efficiency [11]. The total
chargers may cause some issues such as stability, high losses, charge/discharge of the flywheel is better than the battery.
power quality and other problems on the grid. Therefore, In addition, flywheels operate in ambient temperature and
these high-power requirements need to be controlled and with tremendously less cooling system requirements. Thus,
reduced. they have less footprint and generate less heat than batteries
[12]. On the other hand, batteries may be broken via
III. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION undetectable internal failures, even with regular
An on-route charger needs extremely high power to maintenance.
charge the bus in very limited time. The on-route chargers
are built into the bus stops. When the bus stops to pick Two main factors affect the flywheel performance; the polar
up/drop off passengers, the bus has around 1 minute. This moment of inertia and the rotational speed [12]. The kinetic
time can be used to charge the battery, which can contribute energy of the flywheel is given in Equation 1, which is used
to the operation of the e-bus. The proposed fast charger to calculate the stored energy in a body of mass moving in a
system has a flywheel to reduce the peak demand on the Grid straight line with the velocity v,
side. The proposed system is shown in Figure 2.
= (1)

where m is a body of mass that can store more energy within

a higher velocity. A flywheel is a rotating mass;
accordingly, Equation 1 can be rewritten based on the
angular speed ɷ , as given in Equation 2. The flywheel
radius is r :

= ( . ɷ) (2)

In addition one of the other factors is the polar moment of

inertia (J) for FES. J has the unit of mass multiplied by the
radius squared. For the straight solid cylinder with radius r,
Fig. 2. The proposed ultra-fast charging system
rotating about the central axis, the polar moment of inertia
A. Bidirectional DC-DC Converter is calculated as given Equation 3.
The ultra-fast charging systems need DC charging to charge
= . = . (3)
the battery with high power limits. The DC/DC converter in
between the energy storage system and the rectifier is used
Considering the stored kinetic energy in the FES is given in
primarily to control the charging and discharging rates of
Equation 4, where J is polar moment of inertia and ɷmax is
the flywheel. It can be also used to reduce or eliminate the
the maximum angular speed.
grid harmonics, losses and other adverse effects. The
DC/DC converter has to be bidirectional, enabling the
flywheel energy storage charging from the grid and = (ɷ ) (4)
discharging through the EVs. In the proposed system, a dual
stage Cascaded Buck Boost (CBB) topology is chosen. The The discharging characteristic of flywheel is given in
CCB type bidirectional converter is shown in Figure 3. This Equation 5 [13].
topology has more benefits for efficiency and suitable in the
EV applications [10]. = ɷ( ) (5)

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 1 minute. The charger power rate is 600 kW, as that power
The efficiency of flywheel takes into account the required rate is already used in some of on-route charger [16].
energy in order to keep the flywheel spinning, and/or the
standby loss of the flywheel. The flywheel standby loss is When charging the e-bus, switch 1 is active and the flywheel
between 0.2% to 2% according to manufacturers [14]. The supplies to the e-bus. After the e-bus charging, there are 3
structure of the FES is given in Figure 4. minutes to charge flywheel from the grid. The swich 1 is
inactive and switch 2 is active and the the flywheel is
charging from the grid. The process of the
charging/discharging are given in Table 2.

TABLE I. THE CHARGING PERIODS OF THE SYSTEM

From FES to E-bus From Grid to FES

S1 S2 S1 S2
Power Charging Energy Power Charging Energy
rate time rate time

600 kW 1 minute 10 kWh 200 kW 3 minute 10 kWh

As seen in Table 1, the proposed FES system can reduce

66% peak demand on the Grid side. The fast response of the
Fig. 4. The structure of the flywheel
flywheel and advanced control of the charge/discharge
process can enable this to be feasible. The charged energy is
IV. CASE STUDY 10 kWh which can contribute 6-8 km range to the E-bus.
The total route distance is 15 km, so the on-route charge can
On-route ultra fast chargers are one of the charge
provide the around 50% of energy required to complete the
solutions for public transportation. The proposed ultra-fast
charger has FES, bidirectional DC-DC converter, rectifier route.
and contactors. Both the charge and discharge process of the
V. CONCLUSION
FES are done via DC-DC converter. Thus, the system does
not need another inverter to connect to the grid, which helps The ultra-fast charger is a critical key factor for
to reduce the system capital and maintanence costs. The transportation electrification. Public transportation has a
flywheel is used as a energy storage in the proposed system, huge potential to reduce carbon emission. The transition to
because of advantages of high power density, electric buses has some challenges. One of them is effects of
charge/discharge cycles and fast response time. The system fast charging on the grid side. The proposed flywheel-based
performance is analyzed via bus stops along Route 32, one ultra-fast charging system gives a solution to reduce peak
of the busiest bus routes in the Toronto, Canada. Toronto is demand on the grid side. The system can reduce peak
the biggest city in the Canada and one of the most crowded demand by 66% based on the case study. In addition, on-
cities in North America. Route 32 is the busiest bus route route type ultra-fast charger can help to reduce battery size
under the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) [15]. The bus of the e-buses, which will help to minimize the cost of e-
stop at Eglinton Avenue and Dynevor Road was chosen for buses.
study. This bus stop is nearby the busy Eglinton Avenue and
The ultra-fast chargers need high powers that should be
Duffın Street intersection, as shown in Figure 5.
standardized. It is important that national and international
standard commissions work to improve the standards. In
addition, the energy storage systems are critical. This
analysis shows that new applications of charging
technologies can help to solve the challenges and create a
more efficient system.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The study was supported by CUTRIC and Mitacs-
IT15756.
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