Permanent-magnet (PM) passive bearings use the repulsive forces between the rotor and the stator magnets for the bearing function. It is desirable that the stiffness of the bearing is maximized with the given volume of the magnet. The stiffness is affected by the magnet strength, the number of layers, and the magnetization patterns. Previously, finite-element method (FEM) has been used to maximize the stiffness of the bearing. In this paper, we used the equivalent current sheet method to calculate the stiffness. The validity of this approach is checked against FEM results. The optimized bearing is applied to a micro flywheel energy storage system.