Supercapacitors usurp batteries

New supercapacitors are replacing batteries.

That’s according to IDTechEx’s latest report Supercapacitor Markets, Technology Roadmap, Opportunities 2021-2041 which shows how supercapacitors have started to replace 10% of lithium-ion batteries and help kill lead-acid.

At route end, urban buses and light trains will charge in 20 seconds and escape eye-watering battery replacement costs, it adds.

Lithium-ion batteries were selling at the billions of dollars a year level when they hit 100Wh/kg. Aowei and Toomen newly sell supercapacitors with that compactness, Nippon Chemicon and others next.

Compared to batteries, supercapacitors are safer, tolerate overcharge, avoid complex battery management systems, the report explains. Most are now non-flammable, non-toxic, incur no costly controlled disposal, and provide lowest total cost of ownership.

They waste 14% less electricity, grab twice the regenerative energy from a crane or truck, life in use isfourfold better, cycle life and power density tenfold, and four times less kWh is needed for intense power cycling (deep discharge not battery “sipping”).

The second breakthrough is Geely putting large peak-shaving ones in hybrid cars from 2021, with others following and the market potential running to billions of dollars.

A third breakthrough is new formats impractical with batteries from a Lamborghini self-healing car with supercapacitor bodywork to a wearable sensor film with supercapacitor backing that stretches to fit and can be cut to size, the report explains.

Improved supercapacitors and their variants enable huge opportunities in mini-grids, trains, trams, trucks, heavy off-road vehicles, tiny uninterruptable power supplies for IOT nodes using energy harvesting, and 1MWh giants for hospitals, data centres.

Already, they drive brain scanners, lift Maglev trains, power rail and laser guns, go into deep space and provide trustworthy backup for wind turbine blade adjustment, vehicle brakes, aircraft and bus doors, the report says.

Supercapacitors variously operate well at anything from minus 40C to sometimes 150C, even their ubiquitous 85C meaning less or no cooling compared to batteries.

Supercapacitor Markets, Technology Roadmap, Opportunities 2021-2041 is the only post COVID-19 report on all the markets matched to a new technology roadmap, forecasting 20 years ahead by application and geography, and quantifying market disruptions ahead, IDTechEx says.

The introduction explains supercapacitors and their derivatives, forecasting changes ahead.

Tables compare these many emerging parameters with conventional capacitors and batteries, revealing where research emphasis is poorly matched to market potential and gives more on the 20-year legacy of COVID-19 on the car market.

All 80 supercapacitor manufacturers are critically appraised, and companies with large sales or breakthrough products get special attention such as Evans Capacitor with a recent US$7 million order and unique virtuosity.

Another chapter reveals Supercapacitors in Aerospace and Military Applications from radar to ordnance, air surveillance and aircraft safety.

Chapter 5 does the same for Supercapacitors in On and Off-road Vehicles and Rail Systems including mining, logistics and other vehicles and cranes adopting large capacitor banks for power surges in and out.

Supercapacitors in the Energy Sector outlines latest advances in tidal, wave and airborne wind energy harvesting, ocean platform surge absorption, uninterruptible power supplies favouring supercapacitors.

The report ends with three appendices giving important research chosen in the European Union, Japan and New Zealand.

IDTechEx hosts a free webinar on supercapacitors on September 3.

Supercapacitors Turn the Corner is presented by IDTechEx chairman Dr Peter Harrop and will be broadcast 2am, 10am and 5pm British Summer Time.

Click here to find out more and register.