SuperCaps?

This section is not meant for general questions.

Supercaps are basically batteries as well. I don't know if anyone has done it but it is possible. However, the whole point of Supercaps, high power and short charge / quick discharge, is defeated when using them for a Powerwall. You don't need either of their properties.
 
I don't know such project and IMHO it would only make sense if you need to buffer some really short peaks, like a workshop where you need from time to time for a really short period of time some heavy tools, like lifting a car or so.
Otherwise the supecaps have a significant worse self discharge rate than Li-Ion batteries and the biggest reason is the voltage scope, to get the full energy you need the full voltage rate of 0V-2.7V while with batteries you are in the range of 2.5V-4.2V.
So for Supercaps you would need a boost converter which decrease your efficiency even more

but I guess you know all this thins already anyway :)
 
Super caps and solar panels pair well, but only in applications where you need high power for very short periods of time.

Take a look at this guy's project involving solar and super caps to get an idea of where they are useful.
http://laserhacker.com/?cat=3, http://laserhacker.com/?cat=6

The main problem is that they are expensive, and it's almost always cheap to put a higher capacity lithium battery with the same power output in place of a super cap pack.
 
Super caps do not store much energy ..you need about 30 Kgs of them to hold what 1 kg of Li-ion cells hold ...

And they are much more expensive per Kg so the same capacity powerwall would cost over 100 times more than Li-ion...

In addition in the normal discharge/charge cycle caps wastes overt half the energy ... Li-ion might waste 10%..

Also you cannot use the full capacity of caps since the voltage varies so much ...

They are good for one thing, very rapid discharge/charge at very high power levels ,you can put them in parallel with a very small battery and start a car engine this way.
 
About the only thing the SuperCaps would be great for is helping with surges, both before and after the inverters. Having that extra "umph!" available can help lessen the hard hitting draw that some devices require during startup (examples would be heavy duty induction motors like washers, vacuums, or even ceiling fans if they are all on when the main switch it thrown, air compressors/conditioners, fridges, etc)
It isn't unheard of for an induction motor to pull 2 - 3 times their rated amperage for up to 2 seconds on startup
 
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