From liquid air to supercapacitors, energy storage is poised for a breakthrough

Re:From liquid air to supercapacitors, energy storage is poi... by jonawesomegreen on Friday February 05, 2016 @12:40PM (#11043066)

I've spent the last couple years working on a very interesting project using ultra-capacitors for energy storage. We are storing 33kWh of energy in ultra capacitors, charging and discharging with a very short period (seconds) for peak-demand shaving. It really is an exciting time for energy storage technology. I think we are going to see a lot of cool innovation in the next few years, even just finding new uses for existing technologies.

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Re:From liquid air to supercapacitors, energy storage is poi... by saosebastiao on Friday February 05, 2016 @01:52PM (#11043673)

What sort of volume/weight dimensions are required for 33kWh of ultra capacitors?

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Re:From liquid air to supercapacitors, energy storage is poi... by jonawesomegreen on Friday February 05, 2016 @02:14PM (#11043837)

They are quite large, but in the particular application weight and volume are not a huge concern. All sitting side by side they are about 20 meters long, 3 meters high, and a meter deep. Probably weighs on the order of 15 tonnes.

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Re:From liquid air to supercapacitors, energy storage is poi... by zachrose on Friday February 05, 2016 @02:56PM (#11044149)

Wow, how much capacitance is that?

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Re:From liquid air to supercapacitors, energy storage is poi... by aexaey on Friday February 05, 2016 @05:25PM (#11045122)

16.3 megafarads, assuming typical cell voltage of 2.7v, and total energy of 33kWh:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=33kWh%2F%282.7v%29**2

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Re:From liquid air to supercapacitors, energy storage is poi... by oh_sigh on Friday February 05, 2016 @01:57PM (#11043710)

I don't know much about this field, but how does charging/discharging on the order of seconds help shave peak demand?

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Re:From liquid air to supercapacitors, energy storage is poi... by jonawesomegreen on Friday February 05, 2016 @02:11PM (#11043814)

Think of a sinusoidal demand for energy, with a period of a few tens of seconds. By charging when demand is low and discharging when demand is high, peak load is lowered.

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Re:From liquid air to supercapacitors, energy storage is poi... by jsingleton on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @07:55AM (#11072382)

Sounds like a logical extension to power factor correction. Large consumers have long been installing capacitors to compensate for inductive loads. Although this new tech is over a longer time frame.

To put this in context for others, although domestic customers are normally only billed for real power this is not the case for industrial consumers. Reactive power is significant as they are billed not just for energy used but also for peak power drawn.

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