3rd International Conference on Advances in Electrical, Electronics, Information, Communication and Bio-Informatics (AEEICB17)
Enhancing an elevator efficiency by using
supercapacitor
Priyanka Kubade
Department of Electrical Engineering
G. H. Raisoni College of Engineering
Nagpur, India
Abstract—In the elevator drives, there is a wastage of a huge
amount of energy in a breaking resistor which need to be
controlled. The extra energy being generated by different ways
required to be stored for some duration to be used later for the
efficient operation of an elevator. Aim of this paper is to present
how the supercapacitor can be used for enhancing elevator
efficiency by saving the energy. The dc-dc converter has been
used to interface the voltage level of different sources. The
regenerated energy which is normally wasted during braking is
stored temporarily into supercapacitor energy storage device and
reutilized it when the more energy is requested by an elevator
motor. For elucidation of the operation of an overall system, the
simulation results have been discussed. (Abstract)
Keywords— Elevator motor drive, energy storage, control
system, braking energy, supercapacitor (key words)
I. Introduction
SUPERCAPACITOR shows one of the newest
innovations for storing the energy in the form of electrical
energy and for smoothing the power. From the last few
decades the application of supercapacitor has been increasing
widely. Reduction of energy consumption has becoming a
major task in this fast growing world. For this purpose the
device must be energy efficient. To improve the energy
efficiency of an elevator, there must be a storage device for
storing regenerated power which is generated at the time of
lifting-up with light load and lifting- down with heavy load.
As supercapacitor has a large energy density and power
density, it can store a huge amount of regenerative energy
during braking. This energy is fed back to the elevator motor
when more amount of power is requested. By using this new
technique the efficiency of an elevator drive can be improved
[4].
Kinetic energy should be recovered for reducing the
energy consumption during an elevator operation having many
floors with a heavy traffic. The energy during braking can be
obtained by operating the drive of an elevator as a motor or as
a generator. The recovered energy which is obtained when
machine operates as a generator can be fed back to the grid via
a power electronics converter or stored in an accumulator for
utilization purpose when machine operates as motor in next
978-1-5090-5434-3©2017 IEEE
Prof. S. K. Umathe
Department of Electrical Engineering
G. H. Raisoni College of Engineering
Nagpur, India
operating cycle. But to implement back to back converter for
the energy to be fed back to the grid is very expensive, due to
requirement of a fully controlled converter. So, the second
option that is to store energy in an accumulator is preferable.
Accumulator can be either batteries or supercapacitor. Due to
having more life and efficiency supercapacitor has been
selected to use as an energy storage device [9].
In classical solution of an elevator, batteries were used.
But supercapacitor prefers over batteries because of having its
own physical property of not to lose the energy stored in it.
Supercapacitor is also used to control a large amount of power
by having its internal resistance to be less. The supercapacitor
can be dealt in difficult situations as compared with other
energy storage devices as it is capable for more charging and
discharging cycles to be operated in a more range of
temperature [2]-[3].
In [5], the supercapacitor storage system is designed for
the efficiency to be higher than 90%. So the grid absorption
power can be reduced and energy efficient elevator is attained.
In an elevator, the production and consumption of an electric
energy is always depends upon the lifting up and down
movement of the cabin. When the elevator goes upward
having full load or goes downward having empty load, the
maximum energy can be consumed. On the other hand, when
it goes to downward having full load or goes upward having
empty load the maximum amount of energy produces.
Whatever the energy produced here will get stored in a
breaking resistor. After some time this energy is collected in
an energy storage supercapacitor [6]. During motoring
operation, when the elevator motor wants more amount of
energy, supercapacitor gives it and discharges. At this moment
dc-dc converter works in boost mode and transfers
supercapacitor energy into dc-link. The energy accumulated in
dc link is transferred to the elevator motor. Due to this the
power which should come from grid will get decreased and
hence energy will be saved. By saving this energy
enhancement in an elevator efficiency has become possible.
In this project PID controller has been used and the
reduction of energy consumption and smooth charging of
supercapacitor along with its state of charge has been
discussed.
 3rd International Conference on Advances in Electrical, Electronics, Information, Communication and Bio-Informatics (AEEICB17)
series for attaining a higher voltage in the application where
high power is required. The manufacturer, Maxwell offers a
II. Energy saving in an elevator selling of supercapacitor module having a package of many
supercapacitors in series which gives a rated voltage with a
A. System Design large feasibility. Fig.3 shows the equivalent circuit of a
For reducing energy consumption batteries can also be supercapacitor with RC serial model. Resr is the resistance
used in fig.1 but a new solution for elevator having which is connected in series. The leakage resistance Rp which
supercapacitor as an accumulator is the best because it has is connected in parallel can be eliminated if the operation is
advantages of less maintenance and more reliability and ease for a short duration. Actually, for a supercapacitor having
of operation [8]. It does not need to be replaced like batteries capacitance more than 500F, the leakage current is below
because it has a safe operation. Fig.2 comprises the elevator 10mA whereas its rated current is above a hundred amperes. It
machine drive, dc-dc converter, rectifier, inverter and should be charged before reaching at breakdown voltage.
supercapacitor storage bank. The energy which is remained
after complete charging of supercapacitor bank is dissipated in
the resistor. The energy recovery system has been used to
determine the voltage coming from ac-grid and current from
supercapacitor bank. Dc-dc converter is used for interfacing
the high voltage level of dc-link voltage with the low voltage
level of supercapacitor bank. Elevator control desk gives
control to the system and determines the elevator operation.

C. Bidirectional dc-dc converter

The bidirectional dc to dc converter behaves as an electric
power converter which interfaces the voltage level of dc-link
and supercapacitor. This converter transfers the power in both
the directions which enables the charging and discharging of
capacitor. It also controls the current coming from
supercapacitor. When the energy storage is in the state of
charging, the converter circuit works in buck mode and power
flow from dc-link to the storage bank occurs. When the energy
storage is in the state of discharging, the converter circuit
works in boost mode and power flow from sc-bank to dc-link
occurs.

III. Flow of energy in an elevator

Initially, when the supercapacitor is completely
discharged, it is charged from supply. During this, the motor is
powered from a supply in fig. 5(a). At the time when the
supercapacitor is not charged up to the level to give energy by
alone, the motor is powered by a combination of sc and grid in
fig. 5(b).When the supercapacitor is completely charged or if
any interrupt in power supply occurs, the energy to the motor
is provided by supercapacitor in fig.5(c).When supercapacitor
is again discharged, now it is charged from a regenerative
braking energy of motor in fig. 6(d).

B. Supercapacitor-bank
A supercapacitor can also be known as electric double
layer capacitors and it is different from normal capacitor due
to its higher capacitance. Super capacitors are found in a place
where the storage device is able to smooth the power. It
consists of two electrodes and distance between these two is
so closed that they are only able to operate at voltage below
3V. Thus, more units of supercapacitor should be connected in

978-1-5090-5434-3©2017 IEEE
 3rd International Conference on Advances in Electrical, Electronics, Information, Communication and Bio-Informatics (AEEICB17)

Fig.4 Flow of energy in an elevator

The supercapacitor should have the ability of being operated

even if the interrupt in grid power occurs.
Fig.6. Simulation waveform of a voltage in a buck circuit

IV. Simulation model and results

In this project, a motor with nominal power of 15KW,
frequency 50Hz, supply voltage 380V has been used.
According to [8], Supercapacitor with capacitance of 4.5F
having series resistance 2.4mΩ has been used. The
supercapacitor bank is composed of 100 unit cell which is
connected in series for having rated voltage. Voltage range of
supercapacitor bank is 150~250V. Thus whole stack is of
450F.

Fig.7. simulation waveform Stator current of the elevator motor

Fig.5.Simulation model for elevator system with sc-storage

Model consists of power supply, rectifier, dc-dc converter,

inverter, supercapacitor and motor load. The dc voltage which
is attained after buck circuit operation is around 185V as
shown in fig.6. The stator current of a motor is shown in Fig.8. The current of the supercapacitor bank
Fig.7. From the simulation waveform of a supercapacitor bank
it can be concluded that during the charging of a
supercapacitor bank, the current suddenly turns to negative
and at the same time its voltage and state of charge increases.
Here, the SOC for supercapacitor is getting up to 90%.

Fig.9. The voltage of the supercapacitor bank

978-1-5090-5434-3©2017 IEEE
 3rd International Conference on Advances in Electrical, Electronics, Information, Communication and Bio-Informatics (AEEICB17)
with power factor correction”, in Proc. Intern. Conf. ECCE 2013, pp.
721-727.
[5] S. Luri, I. Etxeberria-Otadui, A. Rujas, E. Bilbao, and A. Gonzalez,
“Design of a supercapacitor based storage system for improved elevator
applications”, in Proc. Energy Conversion Congress and
Exposition,2010, pp. 4534-4539.
[6] N. Jabbour, C. Mademlis, and I. Kioskeridis, “Improved performance in a
supercapacitor-based energy storage control system with bidirectional
DC-DC converter for elevator motor drives”, in Proc. IET Conf. PEMD,
2014, pp. 1-6
[7] E. Bilbao, P. Barrade, I. Etxeberria-Otadui, A. Rifer, S. Luri, and I. Gil,
“Optimal energy management strategy of an improved elevator with
energy storage capacity based on dynamic programming”, IEEE Trans.
Ind. Appl., vol. 50, no. 2, pp. 1233-1243, March/Apr. 2014.
[8] Z. Li and Y. Ruan, “A novel energy saving control system for elevator
based on supercapacitor bank using fuzzy logic”, in Proc. Intern. Conf.
ICEM, 2008, pp. 2717-2722.
[9] A. Mesemanolis, C. Mademlis, and I. Kioskeridis, “Neuro-fuzzy energy
management system in elevator drive applications for maximum braking
energy regenerative capability”, in Proc. IET Conf. PEMD, 2014, pp. 1-
6.
Fig.10. State of charge of the supercapacitor
[10] J. Nipkow, M. Schalcher, ‘Energy consumption and efficiency potentials
of lifts’, Report of research project No. 101106/2005 (Publication
250057), Swiss Agency for Energy Efficiency (S.A.F.E.).

V. Conclusion
In this paper, the main focus is on improving elevator
efficiency by reducing its consumption. The simulation results
of motor and supercapacitor have been discussed for the
model made in MATLAB. It is found that when the charging
time for the supercapacitor from 0.7V-1.2V has been given, its
current goes to negative whereas its voltage and SOC goes-up.
If there is no path for discharging energy, curve remains
constant after this interval. So, by using supercapacitor in an
elevator, energy can be saved more by increasing the voltage
as it varies directly with the energy.

References
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978-1-5090-5434-3©2017 IEEE