Drexel Developing New Flow Capacitor
Engineers from Drexel University are looking to provide the grid what it needs with an electrochemical flow capacitor technology which combines the principles behind two energy storage techniques, the flow battery and the supercapacitor.
“The challenge that we undertook was that of finding a way to store energy from renewable sources, in a way that is both efficient, agile (rapidly store energy) and easily scalable to grid-level,” said director of Drexel’s Electrochemical Energy Systems Laboratory, Dr. E.C. Kumbar.
The energy storage capacity of the EFC can be easily adjusted to suit the needs of the system by simply altering the size of electrolyte slurry tanks. The longer lifespan of the EFC – around 100,000 discharge cycles – will also allow operators to save time and money as the cells will not have to be replaced that often.
It is possible that the world might see an operational EFC installed in five to six years.
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