Designing powerful electronic solutions with ultracapacitors

Engineers generally address peak power needs by designing the primary energy source, such as an engine or a battery system, to the size needed to satisfy peak demands, even if those demands occur for only a few seconds. Sizing an entire system for peak power needs, rather than for the average power requirement, is costly and inefficient. Such systems can be significantly improved by storing electrical energy from a primary energy source such as a battery in a secondary energy storage device, and then delivering that energy in controlled high power bursts when required. Such high power delivery provides electrical systems with dynamic power range to meet peak power demands for periods of time ranging from fractions of a second to several minutes. Batteries are not designed to provide bursts of power over many hundreds of thousands of cycles. Ultracapacitors perfectly meet this requirement.

Ultracapacitors, also known as electrochemical double-layer capacitors (EDLCs) or supercapacitors, have been around for decades and first appeared as low power, low energy (but long life) backup devices in VCRs and alarm clocks: but had few other applications. Until now.

Over the last decade, advances in materials and construction techniques have transformed ultracapacitors from ‘minor’ backup components to extremely versatile energy storage solutions. Indeed, ultracapacitors have become a viable component for production intent designs in the power electronics world. Further, many firms, recognizing the technical advantages and high availability of ultracapacitors, are already producing ultracapacitor based systems.