New Industry Products

Maxwell Technologies Introduces Line of ‘Energy’ Ultracapacitor Products

February 13, 2006 by Jeff Shepard

Maxwell Technologies Inc. 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, company officials said.

Dr. Richard Balanson, Maxwell's president and chief executive officer, said the company is rapidly expanding its ultracapacitor product line to capitalize 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 the company is producing a line of six Energy-type cell sizes with capacitances of 350, 650, 1,200, 1,500, 2,000 and 2,600 farads, along with 10 fully integrated multicell modules based on the new cells. He said the cells with a capacitance of 650 farads or greater operate at 2.7 volts, enabling them to store more energy and deliver more power per unit volume than any other commercially available ultracapacitor products.

Everett said 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 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 1 million discharge-recharge cycles," Everett said.

Everett said all 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.