Supercapacitor storage bank ?

13662 Views 71 Replies 9 Participants Last post by somecallmetim, Sep 18, 2019

Karter2

Discussion Starter · Mar 13, 2018

Sorry if this product has been raised before, i searched and nothing came up.
Kilowattlabs Sirius Supercapacitor storage "battery "
Several of the other forums ..Solar, EV, tech , etc...are having some debates over the Sirius product which claims to be the first Supercapacitor based storage device for use with Solar systems, utility storage, EVs, RVs etc etc
They claim it can replace any current Lead ,AGM, or Lithium, battery function.
Infact the list of claims are extensive, not least being rapid charge/discharge, 99% efficiency, million cycle life with no capacity reduction, totally fire safe (non combustable materials) , and $1/Wh price point.
http://www.ultraflexgroup.com/en/ca...capacitors-energy-storage-systems.html?lang=2
Note they are initially offering 3.5kWh and 7.1 kWh , units with other sizes and voltages to follow.
Obviously if any of this is true, then storage has truely advanced instantly, but as many of us realise, these claims go beyond any current proven Supercap performance abilities.....hence why there is hot discussion raging.
Some of you may already be involved in those discussions on other forums , but my reason for raising it here is to rais awareness to either help prove/disprove the validity of this device such that we either can avoid it or benefit from its technology.

41 - 60 of 72 Posts

weber

· #41 · Mar 27, 2018

To be fair, that video predates my revelation that you can buy unlabelled LTO cells in capacitor-style cases. And we don't know if Paul Wilson has read that yet.

The device Paul waves around between 7:23 and 7:45 in that video
https://youtu.be/fdI1ZpRhUkI?t=443
looks remarkably like the LTO cell shown here:
http://forums.aeva.asn.au/viewtopic.php?p=67093#p67093
which is unlabelled apart from a polarity stripe.

Duncan

· #42 · Mar 27, 2018

Why would a company use lithium cells and claim that they were supercaps?

Horribly I do think that is more likely than the huge cost and weight reductions

But I can't think of any reason for them to do that

weber

· #43 · Mar 27, 2018

You must have missed where they are claiming:
1 million cycles at 100% DOD with negligible capacity fade
a 45 year calendar life
operation without degradation at 85 °C
can be charged in less than 30 seconds without affecting cycle life
no risk of thermal runaway

See:
http://www.kilowattlabs.com/energy-storage-advantage.html
http://arvio.com.au/supercapacitor-brochure

And at 9:40 in this video, Paul Wilson implies they are completely non-toxic by claiming they are compostable, containing only carbon and paper, wrapped in aluminium.
https://youtu.be/WFef1VJHUaU?t=414

Every one of those claims would be ludicrous if they admitted it was a lithium ion battery (possibly with a few supercaps added for show).

But as a "Capacitor Module" those claims begin to seem plausible.

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Duncan

· #44 · Mar 27, 2018

I saw all that
But I still don't see how a company could hope to make any money doing this

If they have a huge demand - then people will open them up and see that they have been lied to

I just don't see how a company could hope to make money by selling something that is plainly not what they said it was

With current demand and their pricing they could sell a lot - I think that they are undercutting the Tesla product - as batteries

So why claim it's something its not and open yourself up to all sorts of legal issues?

Karter2

Discussion Starter · #45 · Mar 28, 2018

Arvio (paul Wilson) are not giving up on their Supercap belief without a fight !..and a fire !

http://forums.aeva.asn.au/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=5486&sid=b68058e0f85dfdd0dd39686ec8931022&start=100

Is anyone around Sydney for their RoadShow in April. to ask the key questions ?
Unfortunately i will be overseas or i would love to be there.

weber

· #46 · Mar 29, 2018 (Edited)

Duncan said:
I saw all that
But I still don't see how a company could hope to make any money doing this

If they have a huge demand - then people will open them up and see that they have been lied to

No. When you open them up, you see what looks like unlabelled capacitors. You can't tell they are LTOs by looking at them. Nor can you easily tell they are LTOs by their voltage vs SoC curves, provided you stay within the 44 V to 54 V limits specified by the manufacturer, because LTOs happen to be fairly linear in that region, particularly at the 2C rate.

The main reasons I am fairly confident they are LTOs are:
1. I have read extensively about the current state of the art in supercapacitors, and we're nowhere-near this energy density, even in the lab, let alone mass production. And the chance that some lone genius could leapfrog everyone else by about 10 years is negligible.
2. LTO cells are commercially available that look exactly like the "capacitors" in the Kilowatt Labs unit and they have exactly* the required voltage, internal resistance, energy capacity, weight, dimensions, linear region of voltage vs charge curve, and (as we've seen most recently) flammable electrolyte. * Within 5%. [Edit: And low enough cost]

Now we're waiting for Arvio to release a 1C voltage versus charge curve that goes outside of the linear region for LTOs.

At this stage, I'm assuming good faith on their part.

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Duncan

· #47 · Mar 29, 2018

Hi Weber

But you can tell from the voltage charge curve for a supercap - the slope on that curve is equal to the capacitance

We have been told the capacitance -
if these are batteries then they will have an effective capacitance of about four times that

So isolating one "capacitor" and doing a voltage/current curve will show what is happenning

I would LOVE it to be the supercap breakthrough!
But I think it's much more likely to be as you say

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weber

· #48 · Mar 29, 2018

Duncan said:
But you can tell from the voltage charge curve for a supercap - the slope on that curve is equal to the capacitance

We have been told the capacitance -
if these are batteries then they will have an effective capacitance of about four times that

Sure. But then they could just say they got the capacitance wrong and they're actually better capacitors than they thought!

So isolating one "capacitor" and doing a voltage/current curve will show what is happenning

Yes. But it has to go outside of the region where LTOs are linear. That's what I challenged them to do 4 days ago, and that's what we're still waiting for.

Karter2

Discussion Starter · #49 · Mar 30, 2018 (Edited)

Paul W at Arvio has now posted a video of what he claims is a "recharge test of a 3000F supercapacitor"...
https://youtu.be/m_hyyQ5-d0E
It shows one of their devices charging from 0v to 2.7 v in approx 30 secs drawing something between 15 and 10 amps (cannot see the meter )
Which would suggest he has charged approx 0.3 Wh into that device !
But that implies to me that it is not a 3000F cap is in use there ?
Its going to need a lot more than 15 amps to charge a 3000F cap in 30 secs!!

Duncan

· #50 · Mar 30, 2018

A 3000 Farad capacitor charged to 2.7 volts will require 8100 Coulombs

Which is 8100 Amp seconds

So if it took 30 seconds then it would average 270 amps

Duncan

· #51 · Mar 30, 2018

Just watched the video

He has an average of 5.5 amps for 15 minutes - 900 seconds - 4950 coulombs

Not the full 8100 coulombs - but the way he "averaged" it looked a bit suss

brian_

· #52 · Mar 30, 2018

Karter2 said:
Paul W at Arvio has now posted a video of what he claims is a "recharge test of a 3000F supercapacitor"...
https://youtu.be/m_hyyQ5-d0E
It shows one of their devices charging from 0v to 2.7 v in approx 30 secs...

I didn't bother watching the whole thing or listening to any of it, but text near the beginning notes that the voltage jumps to 2.7 almost immediately. That's presumably what misled Karter2, and it is also inconsistent with a capacitor. I assume that he is charging through a control circuit which throttles the charge rate - the voltmeter is seeing 2.7 volts, but that can't be across a capacitor being charged.

Why is nothing from these people straightforward and credible?

brian_

· #53 · Mar 30, 2018

Duncan said:
Just watched the video

He has an average of 5.5 amps for 15 minutes - 900 seconds - 4950 coulombs

Not the full 8100 coulombs - but the way he "averaged" it looked a bit suss

Suspect?

I see your comment on the video; it should be interesting to see the response.

digsys

· #54 · Mar 30, 2018

As others have said .. plus -
IF they had said a 20-50% increase over what is currently available, I'd still be sus ... without seeing a string of patents and news articles in TECH magazines / papers. nada. At 50%, I'd be seriously skeptical though. But what they claim .. well, put up or shut-up

.. your serve

Karter2

Discussion Starter · #55 · Apr 3, 2018

Arvio uploaded a discharge test on one of the 3000F "supercaps"...
https://youtu.be/aQD8hk2llN0
Looks more like a LTO battery than ever !

brian_

· #56 · Apr 3, 2018

Karter2 said:
Arvio uploaded a discharge test on one of the 3000F "supercaps"...
https://youtu.be/aQD8hk2llN0
Looks more like a LTO battery than ever !

I agree... that certainly doesn't look like a capacitor discharge curve!

Duncan

· #57 · Apr 21, 2018

Just boosting this back up - anybody got any updates?

weber

· #58 · Apr 21, 2018

See
http://forums.aeva.asn.au/viewtopic.php?p=67163#p67163
and
http://whrl.pl/Re7JYv

In particular see the new type of USB-chargeable AA-sized "supercapacitor" from Arvio here:
http://forums.aeva.asn.au/viewtopic.php?p=67289#p67289

MattsAwesomeStuff

· #59 · Apr 21, 2018

Old news is old but...

Duncan said:
So 8.5% at 44v and 95% at 53v

Just don't see how you do that with Supercaps unless you set the "zero" at 40v
So if 2.7v is full then "zero" would be 1.9 volts

Maybe that is how they do it - it's actually a 12 kWh pack and they are only using the top 3.5 kWhs

The energy stored in a capacitor is not linear with voltage as it (sort of) is with batteries.

Energy = Capacitance * Voltage * Voltage / 2

So at double the voltage you have 4x as much energy. At 4x the voltage you have 16x as much energy.

It does actually make sense that the voltage skyrockets immediately under very little current flow, and that by the time you drain it even to half voltage, most of the energy is long gone.

Vaporwear is vaporwear.

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Duncan

· #60 · Apr 21, 2018

Good point so if it was 1.9v to 2.7v

That would be 3.61 to 7.29

So the 3.55kWh pack would actually be a 7 kWh pack that they were only using 3.55 kWh

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