Sustainable development on Energy Storage using Supercapacitors

Energy storage is not a new topic. A lot of devices developed in electrical engineering from more than one century are accumulators: batteries, hydro-pump facilities, etc… However, R&D activities on energy storage are still activities of a great importance, regarding the actual and futures needs for an improved and efficient energy management in various systems, from low power applications up to large scale installations. It is worse to underline that the universal accumulator still does not exist. For a given application, one has to choose upon a large family of different technologies the particular accumulator that matches the specified requirements. A promising storage technology that exists today is based on the use of supercapacitors. These accumulators offer a high power density coupled with a high energy density. This seminar will present such components, their main principle and properties. The design of a supercapacitive tank will be discussed, that must take into account energy and power requirements, but also some thermal considerations. The needed power electronics interfaces will be introduced. Finally, the typical applications for supercapacitors will be presented from various examples.