Australias first Super Capacitor installation

**Homestar** · 7th March 2018, 08:15 PM

Listening to the radio this morning, a Melbourne company has just installed in a home a system that uses super caps instead of batteries to store power. Cost per KWh is almost the same as Lithium, but set to fall as the components are much cheaper - carbon the form of graphine and aluminium. Charging cycles are around 1,000,000 and design life is around 45 years, with no toxic chemicals or exposion risk due to mischarging etc. The can accept pretty much an unlimited charge current and can also discharge quickly if needed and can be taken to dead flat with no effect of the lifespan.

They are now bringing in 200 more units, that are all presold.

Quite impressed - Lithium may go the way of the dodo before it even gets into top gear - Elon Musk is reported to have said they are now looking at this tech for their cars.

Will be interesting to see where this goes in the next few years. 👍

DiscoMick · 7th March 2018, 08:49 PM

Do you have any more information? Sounds interesting.

**trout1105** · 7th March 2018, 08:59 PM

I wonder of you could use these to store lightning

**donh54** · 7th March 2018, 09:13 PM

I often wondered about using caps as batteries when I was playing around with computers - you could get a pretty good zap off the big ones, even a day or so after powering down the system.
Wonder if you could claim carbon credits for the carbon you put in them?

**Dorian** · 8th March 2018, 10:19 AM

Originally Posted by Homestar

Quite impressed - Lithium may go the way of the dodo before it even gets into top gear - Elon Musk is reported to have said they are now looking at this tech for their cars.

I'd reckon that they would end up with a mix of super caps and batteries. Supercaps for the regen braking and the batteries for longer haul. Capacitors by their very nature will self discharge faster than batteries and at a guess the supercaps would have to be heavier than Lithium per KwH.

Cheers Glen

**Homestar** · 8th March 2018, 12:05 PM

Originally Posted by DiscoMick

Do you have any more information? Sounds interesting.

Was trying to find the article earlier but with limited success. Will have another look when I get a moment.

**Homestar** · 8th March 2018, 12:06 PM

Originally Posted by Dorian

I'd reckon that they would end up with a mix of super caps and batteries. Supercaps for the regen braking and the batteries for longer haul. Capacitors by their very nature will self discharge faster than batteries and at a guess the supercaps would have to be heavier than Lithium per KwH.

Cheers Glen

Weight is about the same apparently - not sure on self discharge levels, but small super caps in electronics will hold their charge for months.

A combination of the 2 would make sense.

**vnx205** · 8th March 2018, 12:10 PM

A few years ago when electric bikes began racing at the FX Superbike series, I asked one of the riders about regenerative braking.

He said that while racing bikes brake hard, it is normally only for brief periods and that it is hard to feed power into batteries that quickly.

He suggested that capacitors might be the answer. So a combination of batteries and capacitors seems to make sense.

**Homestar** · 8th March 2018, 01:01 PM

The interview I heard it on was on ABC - the podcast of the whole morning is here - Mornings - Mornings - ABC Radio - it’s about half way through.

DiscoMick · 8th March 2018, 08:28 PM

Originally Posted by Homestar

The interview I heard it on was on ABC - the podcast of the whole morning is here - Mornings - Mornings - ABC Radio - it’s about half way through.

Thanks for your trouble. I have also done some other reading. Interesting stuff.

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