How about the supercapacitors for the San Diego communication base station

SMEs cited a lack of awareness about supercapacitor benefits and capabilities for the power system, and the significant challenge of integration into the broader energy storage conversation. Supercapacitors are developed within a small industry relative to other types of energy storage, such as batteries.

Supercapacitors are developed within a small industry relative to other types of energy storage, such as batteries. Lithium-ion batteries have become the dominant storage technology for most grid applications through significant investment in innovation and scale-up of deployment, as well as the corresponding increased power densities at less cost.

In the case of supercapacitors, demonstrations also would help educate customers about the capabilities of supercapacitor storage. An objective of such a demonstration would be to increase demand and therefore help supercapacitors achieve economies of scale.

This hybrid setup takes advantage of the high power density of the supercapacitors and high energy density of other energy storage technologies. Theoretically, these hybrid pairings are beneficial; however, more work is needed on the power electronics and controls to assess and prove that hybridization will provide benefits in practice.

For example, while supercapacitors have high charge and discharge rates and therefore may be well suited to provide frequency regulation in the grid, regulation markets often have requirements regarding the minimum duration of a participating resource, which is often longer than what supercapacitors can economically provide, .

Supercapacitors do not require a solid dielectric layer between the two electrodes, instead they store energy by accumulating electric charge on porous electrodes filled with an electrolyte solution and separated by an insulating porous membrane. Supercapacitors offer large specific capacitance and high power output.