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Product category: Capacitors
News Release from: Maxwell Technologies | Subject: Energy-type Boostcap
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 17 February 2006

Ultracapacitors focus on energy storage

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Energy-type Boostcap cells and modules are specifically engineered to provide lower cost solutions for UPS, telecommunications and other light duty industrial electronics applications.

Maxwell Technologies has introduced 16 new energy-type Boostcap ultracapacitor cells and multicell modules as part of its product family strategy to better meet the diverse requirements of the automotive, transportation, industrial and consumer electronics markets Dr Richard Balanson, Maxwell's President and Chief Executive Officer, said that the company is rapidly expanding its ultracapacitor product line to capitalise on its global leadership as a provider of innovative, high-performance, low-cost energy storage and power delivery solutions

"The worldwide ultracapacitor market is real and increasingly diverse, so we are moving aggressively to strengthen Maxwell's capabilities and global reach to better serve it", Balanson said.

"This means new and more technologically advanced products, stronger internal and external production and distribution capabilities and a wider network of partnerships and alliances".

"This line of energy-type ultracapacitor products gives our industrial customers a much wider range of choices to meet their energy storage and power delivery requirements".

Michael Everett, Maxwell's Vice President and Chief Technical Officer, said that the company is leveraging its versatile cell and module architecture and electrode technology to produce a line of six energy-type cell sizes with capacitances of 350, 650, 1200, 1500, 2000 and 2600F, along with 10 fully integrated multicell modules based on the new cells.

All cells with a capacitance of 650F or greater operate at 2.7V, enabling them to store more energy and deliver more power per unit volume than any other commercially available ultracapacitor products.

Everett noted that the energy-type Boostcap products will offer customers cells and modules specifically engineered to provide lower cost solutions for UPS, telecommunications and other light duty industrial electronics applications.

He said that a second line of power-type cells for hybrid vehicle drive trains, automotive subsystems and other applications that require the lowest equivalent series resistance (ESR) and highest efficiency available with current ultracapacitor technology will be introduced shortly.

"In addition to meeting or exceeding demanding transportation and industrial application requirements for both watt-hours of energy storage and watts of power delivery per kilogram, all of these products will perform reliably for more than one million discharge-recharge cycles", Everett said.

"The proprietary architecture and material science on which Boostcap products are based also enable us to significantly reduce manufacturing cost, positioning Maxwell to achieve our stated goal of pricing large cell ultracapacitors at one cent per farad in multi-million-cell annual volumes".

Everett said that all of Maxwell's multicell modules are specifically designed to meet end-user requirements for durability and maintenance-free operation.

They include internal cell balancing that give designers "plug and play" solutions, plus module-to-module balancing that makes them versatile building blocks for systems with higher voltage requirements.

Boostcap ultracapacitors deliver up to 10 times the power and longevity of batteries, require no maintenance and operate reliably in extreme temperatures.

In transportation applications, they efficiently recapture energy from braking for reuse in hybrid drive trains, reducing fuel consumption and emissions.

They also provide compact, lightweight "life-of-the vehicle" solutions to stabilise automotive power networks and power new, all-electric subsystems, such as drive-by-wire steering.

In mission critical industrial applications, where backup power is critical for continued operation or a soft shutdown in the event of power interruptions, they provide reliable, cost-effective, maintenance-free energy storage.

In wind turbine blade pitch and braking systems and other industrial applications, they provide a simple, solid state, highly reliable, solution to buffer short-term mismatches between the power available and the power required.

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