Performance and limitations of a constant power-fed supercapacitor

Martin Mellincovsky, Alon Kuperman, Chaim Lerman, Shlomo Gadelovits, Ilan Aharon, Noam Reichbach, Gal Geula, Ronen Nakash

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

46 Scopus citations

Abstract

Analytical description of a constant power fed supercapacitor behavior is revealed in the paper. The derivation is based on a simple RC model with parameters taken from a manufacturer datasheet. Different power and energy-related figures of merit are obtained using the derived expressions. It is shown that some of the performance figures used in datasheets are strictly theoretical and cannot be achieved in practice. The process of Ragone plot construction based on the proposed method is described as well. Moreover, it is shown that the upper limit of a supercapacitor voltage imposes certain limits on power and energy capabilities of the device. Extended simulation and experimental results are provided in order to reinforce the proposed method and justify the selected model for describing supercapacitor performance. Appropriate comparison of simulations and experiments shows that the simple first-order model may be utilized to predict supercapacitor behavior with reasonable accuracy to perform an initial design.

Original languageEnglish
Article number6704741
Pages (from-to)445-452
Number of pages8
JournalIEEE Transactions on Energy Conversion
Volume29
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jan 2014
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Constant power source
  • energy efficiency
  • power capability
  • ragone plot
  • supercapacitor

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Energy Engineering and Power Technology
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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