BU-209: How does a Supercapacitor Work?
One microfarad is one million times smaller than a farad, and one pico-farad is again one million times smaller than the microfarad. Engineers at
Cost is the third major disadvantage of currently available supercapacitors. The cost per Wh of a supercapacitor is more than 20 times higher than that of Li-ion batteries. However, cost can be reduced through new technologies and mass production of supercapacitor batteries.
In order to get a realistic measurement of leakage or self dis-charge current the supercapacitor must be charged for in excess of 100 hours, this again is due to the capacitor construction. The supercapacitor can be modeled as several capacitors connected in parallel each with an increasing value of series resistance.
While an ordinary electrostatic capacitor may have a high maximum operating voltage, the typical maximum charge voltage of a supercapacitor lies between 2.5 and 2.7 volts. Supercapacitors are polar devices, meaning they have to be connected to the circuit the right way, just like electrolyte capacitors.
Supercapacitors occupy the gap between high power/low energy electrolytic capacitors and low power/high energy rechargeable batteries. The energy W max (expressed in Joule) that can be stored in a capacitor is given by the formula This formula describes the amount of energy stored and is often used to describe new research successes.
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