How is the maintenance business of supercapacitors for communication base stations

Due to their high power density and long life, supercapacitors are ideal for mission-critical back-up power applications. These applications are defined by two major requirements — the ability to rapidly switch to back-up power after a power loss has occurred and the ability to maintain a power supply until longer-term back-up is engaged.

An uninterruptible power supply (UPS) supported by supercapacitors will generally require only seconds of back-up power discharge to give time for the long termin power source to start up. Supercapacitors are also used for back-up when integrated into electronic systems.

Supercapacitors can effectively handle the pulses while being recharged from a battery or other power source. Other parts of the design can remain low power and serviced by these other power sources without being oversized to meet the radio communications.

To combat this, supercapacitor manufacturers offer cooling and thermal management for module- and system level solutions. Using active cooling methods, such as fans or liquid cooling systems, or using passive cooling with proper ventilation and heat sinks, can help maintain optimal operating temperatures and ensure long life for supercapacitors.

The current energy stored of commercially available supercapacitors is today relatively low up to 5Wh/kg. There are basically two types of the electrolyte- 1) lower Capacitance and lower ESR aqueous based or 2) higher capacitance, higher ESR polymer electrolyte based.

A broader application range would also be possible with low temperature low ESR supercapacitors (e.g. for deep space missions) or with high temperature long-term stable supercapacitors (for memory and clock backup). The TRL of the developed BOSC can be considered to be 6.