Hybrid Battery/Supercapacitor Systems for Pulsed Power

Electro Standards Laboratories, Cranston, RI, a Research and Development company with expertise in motor controls and power systems, has invested its resources to further the technology of hybrid battery/supercapacitor systems for pulsed power applications. The company will be presenting a paper entitled Design Considerations for Hybrid Battery/Supercapacitor Systems for Pulsed Power at the IEEE Energy Conversion Congress & Expo (ECCE) in Denver, Colorado, USA, in September 2013.

There is a great deal of interest in technology that will improve energy efficiency through advances in both traditional and alternative energy storage, power systems, and renewable energy. Challenge areas include power generation and storage improvements for remote sensor buoys and for small unmanned underwater vehicles. Additionally, providing lightweight, high energy density and high energy volume approaches to store harvested energy on individuals, vehicles, and weapon systems would be beneficial.

Supercapacitors, batteries, and hybrid battery/supercapacitor systems can play a part in providing much needed improvements in these challenge areas. The advantage of supercapacitors is their high power density; the disadvantage is their low energy density. While batteries offer higher energy storage density, their power density is relatively low.

Taking all of these scientific challenge areas into consideration, Electro Standards Laboratories has developed a novel estimation methodology that can be used to evaluate the potential benefits of implementing hybrid battery-supercapacitor systems to improve battery life. This approach allows for a quick comparison of battery-only versus a hybrid battery-capacitor system in terms of maximizing battery efficiency without the need for complicated and detailed computer simulations.

The paper to be presented at ECCE will provide an overview of the hybrid battery/capacitor system approach and will provide guidelines for estimating the performance of such systems in comparison with using batteries alone. With the information presented, system engineers/designers can decide if a more detailed trade study is warranted to determine if a hybrid system design is the best design approach for a given application.

For more information visit www.electrostandards.com.