Practical Industrial Applications of Ultracapacitor

Technology in India - A Case Study

Amit Raje Dinesh Sahu

Member, IEEE Innovation Labs - IRDD,

Aartech Solonics Limited Aartech Solonics Limited

E-2/57, Arera Colony, 35A/36, Sector B, Industrial Area,

Bhopal, MP 462016, India Mandideep, MP 462046, India

amitraje@aartechsolonics.com dsahu@aartechsolonics.com

Vikesh Gautam
Ultracapacitor SSD,

Aartech Solonics Limited

35A/36, Sector B, Industrial Area,

Mandideep, MP 462046, India

vgautam@aartechsolonics.com

Abstract -- Ultracapacitors have a unique positioning among

various energy storage devices. Their features can be leveraged I. NOMENCLATURE
for a large number of industrial applications. This paper
Ultracapacitor - Supercapacitor, Electrochemical Double
presents some of the innovation, design and system integration
initiatives that have led to pioneering practical industrial Layer Capacitor (EDLC)
applications of ultracapacitor technology in India in various
KranKing® - Registered trademark of Aartech Solonics
domains such as Railways, Diesel Generators / Engines, Process
Limited for ultracapacitor based engine starting systems.
Industries, Renewable Energy, Heavy Earth Moving Equipment
etc. Use case scenarios which were tested, validated and finally FaraDigmTM - A trademark of Aartech Solonics LImited
adopted in real world conditions are presented with field data for ultracapacitor based system solutions.
and analysis.

Index Terms--Energy storage, Supercapacitors, Internal
combusion engines, Power quality, Power system reliability,
Uninterruptible power systems, Microgrids, Switched-mode
power supply, Emergency power supplies, Smart grids, Pulse
power systems, Railway engineering, Variable speed drives,
Energy harvesting.
II. INTRODUCTION
While industries are generally on a constant lookout for
practical ways to create more value from their assets, their
investments in adoption of new concepts and technologies are
not entirely predictable. The experience over the years in the
introduction of practical industrial applications of
ultracapacitors in India is very interesting in this context.
Despite the tremendous speed of technology dissemination of
our times, its interesting to note that the spread and
penetration of ultracapacitor technologies has been highly

978-1-5090-0128-6/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE

varied across the globe. One of the important drivers for as the JOP (Jacking Oil Pumps) need to remain operative
techno-commercial acceptance and use is the established such that turbine and other critical systems can be brought
validation and proven trials of ne w technologies in real- into a safe shutdown mode. Telecom towers also rely on DG
world conditions. sets for rural installations with poor power availability. Most
arrangements have facility of charging from mains although
Ultracapacitors have a unique positioning amongst various some cases rely on the batteries being charged only through
energy storage devices. Particularly, their pulse power their own alternator and hence need long duration standby
capabilities, combined with their ability to handle quick mode capabilities with low self discharge.
charging, large number of charge-discharge cycles, deep
discharge capabilities and their relative performance in Interactions with the site engineers indicate that the battery
diverse environmental conditions provide for very interesting is a major point of failure in this entire scheme and measures
application possibilities. to improve the reliability indices are constrained by the
performance one can expect from batteries despite best of
Ultracapacitors are often compared with batteries. It is maintenance and periodic maintenance. The consequential
common for application engineers to looks at substitution losses on cranking failure can be very high depending on the
opportunities where batteries have inherent limitations, which critical nature of their installations.
have clearly been established by their experience. However,
ultracapaitor applications are not necessarily limited to The details below illustrate an application where the
substitution or support of batteries; rather scoping of their customer established the need for insisting on battery less
innovative uses open the doors to various interesting engine starting operations for a 190 HP Fire Fighting Pump
possibilities. Academic institutions are taking several (FFP) at a remote oil pumping station. Even though the
initiatives for students and research teams to use the state-of- standard maintainence procedures for batteries were being
the-art ultracapacitor products and technologies and put them regularly followed, there was a considered need to introduce
to suitable proof-of-concept projects. long life maintenance free solutions.
As such, batteries essentially have slow, gradually Fig. 1 shows the cranking current of their standard
diminishing, relatively inefficient, faradaic reactions 24V/180AH lead acid batteries setup. The cranking operation
happening at their electrodes, whereas ultracapacitors have took 1.375s and the peak current observed was 1257A.
fast, highly repeatable, efficient, electrostatic charge-
discharge operations. Battery performance can be drastically
affected under poor SOC (State of Charge), SOH (State of
Health) or environmental conditions (eg. Low temperature).
Depending on various chemistries, it is relatively difficult to
accurately predict the actual performance capabilities of
batteries at any given time. On the contrary, the
ultracapacitors are more like a WYSIWYG (What-You-See-
Is-What-You-Get) device.
This paper will focus on some of the practical industrial
applications that have been attempted in various use case
scenarios. The current measurements were made using a
Fluke 345 instrument that has a Hall Effect Sensor rated to Fig 1 - Cranking current of a 190HP FFP with 24V/180AH Batteries
measure DC currents upto 2000A.
A KranKing® 24DG-72 system was designed for meeting
this requirement, and also support significant multiple
III. INDUSTRIAL APPLICATIONS - CASE STUDIES cranking operations. Fig. 2 shows the cranking current of this
setup. The cranking operation took 0.8s and the peak current
A. Diesel Generators / Diesel Engines
observed was 1262A.
Diesel generators and diesel engines are generally
provided as backup / standby arrangements for important
loads incase of mains failure. For eg. remote oil pumping
stations established at regular lengths along pipelines have
diesel powered fire fighting pumps with manual / semi-
automatic / fully-automatic starting arrangements. Similarly
power plants have suitably rated backup DG sets to handle
contingencies such as grid failure, where critical loads such
Fig 2 - Cranking current of a 190HP FFP with KranKing® 24DG-72
Further, multiple cranking operations were conducted
consecutively with a disconnected charger. Also, the FFP was
shutdown immediately after starting so that charging support
through alternator is also factored out. Fig. 3 shows the
cranking current profile during 5 repeated with a gap of 10
seconds each approximately.
Fig 3 - Multiple cranking operations of a 190HP FFP with KranKing®
24DG-72
It is also important to note here that the footprint has
reduced by 50% in the new setup. Fig. 4 shows the standard
battery arrangement on a battery rack, while Fig. 5 shows the
KranKing® 24DG-72 system.
Fig 4 - Standard Battery Arrangement 2x12V/180AH for 190HP FFP
Fig 5 - KranKing® 24DG-72 installed and commissioned for 190HP FFP
A PCMT (Protection, Control, Monitoring and Testing)
interface is handy to ensure that all system integration
expectations of a customer can be duly addressed. These can
be convenient for use in a portable or a panel form. Fig. 6 and
Fig. 7 shows these applications realized for different end use
needs.
Fig 6 - KranKing® PCMT (Protection, Control, Monitoring and Testing)
Portable Module.
Fig 7 - KranKing® PCMT (Protection, Control, Monitoring and Testing)
Panel for DG Set Substations under trials.
B. Industrial Drives, Controls & Instrumentation
Modern industrial processes are supported by powerful
controllers and instrumentation and powered by industrial
drives to achieve a high level of efficiency and automation.
Such processes are also very sensitive to any interruption
in their power supplies. Many equipments need to have
uninterrupted power for their PLC/HMI, while in some cases
power backup for their entire load is necessary. Some
processes prefer to enter into a safe shutdown mode during
power interruptions, while some facilities may have a DG set
serving as a backup, getting auto-started and synchronized
through an Auto-Mains Failure (AMF) scheme. The vital
loads that need to be supported during a power outage may be
completely DC powered (eg. Front end SMPS of a
PLC/HMI/DC motor/Industrial PC etc.), or a combination of
AC and DC loads. AC driven drives also have an internal DC
bus, which, if tapped and buffered with additional energy
source, can provide for required continuity in the downstream
process.
A typical solution approach to deal with a power quality
sensitive application is providing for an online UPS. While a
typical double conversion online UPS does provide a reliable
buffer against input contingencies; several factors need to be
taken into consideration. The UPS should be sized to handle
the peak starting currents typical of the motor loads in the
installation. The overall efficiency is impacted by the
conversion and inversion efficiencies, load levels and the
efficiency of the batteries. Considering the oversizing aspects
as per the peak load requirements, the regular operational
efficiencies due to the above factors can be quite poor. The
operational costs for continuous losses due to the UPS when
factored with the recurring costs of battery replacements
every few years add up to a significant proportion of the
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) experienced by the end
users.
Here, one needs to carefully examine the duration of
backup that is critically required. Careful review of end use
requirements indicate that a 30s-1minute backup can be
sufficient for safe shutdown procedures and/or DG set backup
provisions. Ultracapacitors are ideally positioned to provide
for such pulse power requirements.
1) FaraDigmTM Short Duration AC UPS
A textile OEM was serving several customers in a
particular geographic region facing severe power cuts on a
frequent basis. Coordination between some drives and some
DOL induction motors used in the equipment was lost during
a power outage (as the drive stopped immediately, whereas
the induction motor driven spindle continued to coast to a
halt) resulting in breaking of 1000’s of threads used in the
fabric knitting process. UPS provisions at such textile
facilities had to ensure that the batteries are located in a
separate battery room along with the UPS such that any
chemical impact on the textiles was clearly avoided. Power
quality issues such as low power factor, harmonics etc. are
also imposing an adverse impact in the health of the entire
plant. The recurring costs, maintenance needs and logistics of
battery replacements were anticipated to be a major
investment for the customer, and it was likely that after sales
service would be demanded on them as the OEM.
An alternate solution was developed in the form of a
FaraDigmTM Short Duration AC UPS that would power the
drive load upto 5kW for a minimum period of 30 sec. The
solution could also be applicable at the DC bus of the drive
(thus eliminating the AC UPS entirely) or as a substitute to
the battery of a standard AC UPS typically rated from 400-
600VDC. Special protection and control provisions were
made to ensure the safety, reliability and maintainability of
the proposed system. The FaraDigmTM Short Duration AC
UPS is portable, significantly more compact with its modest
footprint and provided for measurements, charging-
discharging provisions and in-built testing facilities. Fig. 8
shows a trial installation of a 10kVA, 3 Phase, 220VAC Line-
Line, 50 Hz FaraDigmTM Short Duration AC UPS for a
textile industry application (see the portable unit next to the
wall, the larger unit being the UPS, and the smaller unit on
top being the energy storage) which primarily powers the
drive and its controller for upto 30s.
Fig. 8 - 10kVA FaraDigmTM Short Duration UPS for Textile Application.
2) FaraDigmTM Short Duration DC UPS
A speciality paint raw material company had imported
some expensive equipments in their R&D to meet their
customer’s specific requirements and were concerned about
the performance of the equipment under regular power
outages. Apart from raw material wastage and quality issues
of the end product, there were concerns about loss of process
information registered in the volatile memory of the PLCs,
loss of displayed information to the technician, and any
potential damages to the expensive equipments by sudden
power failures. The PLC/HMI controlled the process and
required about 50W at 24VDC supply for operation. The
backup was through a manually started DG set which may
take upto 5 minutes for starting although a new DG set is
proposed in the near future with an Auto-Mains-Failure
(AMF) scheme. Accordingly, a FaraDigmTM Short Duration
DC UPS system with a wide range input capability was
suggested to provide for 24VDC/3A supply with modular
incremental blocks for enhanced storage as per the actual
backup requirements to meet their present, and futuristic
needs.
Since the ultracapacitors can discharge upto 0V, an
optional power electronics interface, that ensures a regulated
supply is made available to the load during the widest
discharge voltage range of the ultracapacitors, can enhance
the backup duration of the DC UPS. For eg. a 2:1 range (i.e.
discharge upto 50% of rated voltage) will ensure that 3/4 of
the stored energy can be used as delivered energy. Advanced
ultra-wide dc-dc converters upto 8:1 range can also be
employed but add to the cost and complexity of the overall
solution.
Fig. 9 shows a FaraDigmTM Short Duration DC UPS with
short cycling controller used in a PV Solar powered
Refrigerator. A 2x250W PV Solar Panel connected to a DC
BLDC Controller which drives a DC compressor has
operational challenges during dusk/dawn conditions as the
compressor has frequent turn-on/turn-off events that
potentially influences its life. Further, there is a need to
provide the initial high currents required at the time of
compressor starting which the PV Solar panels are not
capable of. A Short Cycling Controller ensures that the on-off
duty cycle is reasonably managed during dusk/dawn
conditions. The wide input range of the BLDC controller
naturally aligns with the discharge range of the FaraDigmTM
Short Duration DC UPS and provides a superior performance
with reasonable investment.
Fig. 9 - FaraDigmTM Short duration DC UPS with short cycling controller
installed in PV Solar powered Refrigerator
Similarly applications have been designed as a battery
backup unit for onboard vehicle electronics to continue to run
without interruption even in the case of engine starting or
some major electrical peak loads. Short Duration DC UPS
also find regular applications in industries such as CNC,
Pharma, FMCG and other automation areas, renewables
integration with Solar PV etc.. Typical applications need
AC/DC input provisions, with a 24VDC/48VDC buffered
output and a supply current range of 1A-20A.
TECHNO-COMMERCIAL EVALUATION
Ultracapacitors generally meet or better the direct monetory
investment requirements of a battery on an equipment
lifecycle basis. They also provide a variety of other tangible
benefits such as reduced preventive maintenance and part
replacements of various engine parts which start becoming
visible generally in a couple of annualized cycles. Factors
such as quick charging, ability to charge from weaker,
smaller or depleted batteries or other energy harvesting
means, multiple start capability, performance under extreme
temperature profiles invoke tremendous customer response
and relief from the typical anxieties that they are otherwise
challenged with. Intangible benefits such as reduced
footprint, optimized weight and volume, and environmental
friendly aspects add more strength in the value proposition to
a customer for a holistic evaluation. The cost of
ultracapacitors is also showing a healthy downtrend owing to
increased production capacities, use cases, supply chain
options and market penetration in variety of applications.
CONCLUSIONS
Ultracapacitors offer a wide range of potential disruptive
innovative industrial applications with their unique
properties. With several pioneering initiatives in the Indian
context, their proven use in several use case scenarios by way
of extensive validation trials is illustrated in this paper. A
system solution approach demonstrates techno-commercial
viability for applications in many domains and this
technology is expected to reach critical momentum in the
near future.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge their
colleagues across various functional teams, their organization
M/s Aartech Solonics Limited, its advisors, consultants and
its various customers who have enthusiastically participated
in the trial and validation of the new technology. The design
inputs from a wide variety of stakeholders continue to help
shape the various products and system solutions, some of
which are described in this paper.
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