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In my mind, ultracapacitors and hydrogen play similar roles. They are both advanced, proposed forms of energy storage that always seem just over the horizon… no matter how far along we travel. With hydrogen, the problem is not the power generating technology itself – fuel cells exist, and they work great. The problem is that we have poor means of storing and distributing the fuel. Ultracapacitors have the opposite problem. The infrastructure for transmitting and generating electricity is all in place; what we lack are the actual ultracapacitors themselves.
Granted, scientists are hard at work trying to build these ultracapacitors, and with the nanotechnology available to material scientists today, there is good reason to believe it is within our reach. But I’m not such a patient guy, and I still want to see real live examples of ultracapacitors in action.
Looks like I’ll have to go to South Korea, because that’s where ultracapacitors from Maxwell Technologies (of San Diego) were shipped earlier this year, and are now being tested. The South Korean government has hooked them up to a Korean subway system, where they will capture electricity from regenerative braking. A full demonstration of the technology isn’t scheduled to happen until mid 2009, but for now Maxwell claims that tests are going well. They say that they could reduce grid consumption by 20%!
More importantly, if we see real, working, prototypes from Maxwell, that means that car-sized ultracapacitors might not be that far off. An ultracapacitor-powered electric vehicle is better than a lithium-ion powered one, because it can charge in minutes, rather than hours.
Maxwell! Bring some of those ultracapacitors to New York! We’ve got plenty of subways here, let me tell you. In fact, I think I wouldn’t mind the ear-splitting screetch of the 1 Train if I knew that all that braking was going to a good purpose. Well, not as much anyway.
Via Greentech Media
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written by Nikita Kondraskov, December 12, 2008
The project was for testing purposes only, but I beleave it is still running for daily business as well.
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written by Niels, December 13, 2008
Anyways, for cars you need far smaller ones, since you only need to capture energy from braking, which will then be used to accelerate (like a flywheel does) or even slowly charged back into the battery (but better use it immediately to save your battery's lifetime). Supercaps can, in contrast with batteries, be charged and discharged hundreds of thousands of times an also much faster than batteries.
Those are their main features so you wouldn't want to use it as or instead of a battery, but just for the part of braking and accelerating. So please don't see them as some holy grail to replace batteries.
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written by Clinch, December 14, 2008
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written by Harry, December 14, 2008
Regenerative brakes use magnetic resistance, so would make the same sort of noise as a generator or motor.
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written by Jacob, December 15, 2008
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written by Ray, December 15, 2008
I'd love to bring ultracapacitors to NYC -- have already tried to do that on the transit buses, but let me know who I can talk to to see if we can help reducing that screeching noise when braking -- by the way, regenerative braking will NOT create the metal to metal screeching noise.
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written by Mark, December 22, 2008
It seems to me that the reason we don't see many more of these setups is not because we don't have the technology, it's because we don't have the money in our public works budget to get stuff like this going. You'd need the motors/generators (maybe they could use existing hardware on this?) and the energy storage, the retrofix/new subway cars, not to mention the labor involved in changing the setup. It seems like with all the space on subway cars, they could have the room to house the capacitors to hold at least some of that energy, to help get the car going again, but it seems to me it's a money issue.
Alternatively, most subways use power transmission in the tracks, yes? Why not skip the on board energy storage and just put it back into the grid, that way you don't need to keep expensive storage equipment on each car, and you're still basically saving (almost) as much energy, subway net metering.
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written by Todd Edelman, December 25, 2008
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written by Todd Edelman, December 25, 2008
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written by Todd Edelman, December 25, 2008
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written by wedding dresses, October 13, 2009
DEC 12
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"Ultra or supercaps have been in use for several years on buses in Nure..."
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South Korea Testing Out Ultracapacitors
Written by Yoni Levinson on 12/12/08
In my mind, ultracapacitors and hydrogen play similar roles. They are both advanced, proposed forms of energy storage that always seem just over the horizon… no matter how far along we travel. With hydrogen, the problem is not the power generating technology itself – fuel cells exist, and they work great. The problem is that we have poor means of storing and distributing the fuel. Ultracapacitors have the opposite problem. The infrastructure for transmitting and generating electricity is all in place; what we lack are the actual ultracapacitors themselves.
Granted, scientists are hard at work trying to build these ultracapacitors, and with the nanotechnology available to material scientists today, there is good reason to believe it is within our reach. But I’m not such a patient guy, and I still want to see real live examples of ultracapacitors in action.
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The other problems I see with this, is if they can charge very quickly, would there be a heating issue?
And what is their discharge rate (i.e. how long can they hold their charge)? Because if they're used for conventional cars, you can't always tell exactly how much power a journey will take, so would charge it more than needed, and then waste the excess energy from discharge once you reach your destination (although, if you could plug it in to the mains to discharge the capacitor in to the grid, rather than it just be wasted). And there's also the issue of not always being able to park where you can recharge, such as if you go to the supermarket, and park in the carpark for a couple of hours (yes, I know it's unrealistic that someone would need to spend that much time shopping, but that's beside the point) you could come back to your car, and find the capacitor has discharged so much, that you don't have enough energy to get back home.