USA: Long Island Rail Road is to use carbon fibre flywheels to store energy regenerated during braking for reuse when trains accelerate, helping to lower energy consumption and reduce the peak power demand which can impose high power supply costs on rail operators.

The $5·2m pilot project on LIRR's West Hempstead line is receiving financial support from New York Power Authority, which worked with New York MTA to evaluate flywheel, ultracapacitor and battery energy storage before selecting Pentadyne to provide an improved version of a demonstration flywheel system which was successfully tested on the Far Rockaway line in 2002.

Pentadyne will supply an array of carbon fibre flywheels for the 2·4 MW lineside system, which it said will be more rugged and energy efficient than batteries. 'This will be our first deployment in the rail market', said Mark McGough, President & CEO of the Los Angeles based flywheel supplier. 'We are confident that this will lead to many other projects with the MTA of New York City and with other electric rail facilities throughout the nation and abroad.'