Companies Collaborate on Hybrid Energy Storage

Nov 28, 2007 4:48 PM
by Mark Valentine, Technical Editor, Power Electronics Technology

Maxwell Technologies and Tianjin Lishen Battery plan to manufacture and market hybrid energy-storage products combining the companies' respective ultracapacitor and Li-ion battery technologies. David Schramm, Maxwell's president and chief executive officer, states that the companies see a large market opportunity for products that leverage the complementary strengths of double-layer-capacitor and Li-ion battery technologies.

The companies have identified a number of initial target applications for these products, ranging from quick-charge cordless tools to electric vehicles, and anticipate production and delivery of initial product samples in early 2008.

"We believe that the products we envision will give end-users the best of both worlds in terms of the long cycle life, rapid charge/discharge characteristics and low-temperature performance of ultracapacitors and the large energy-storage capacity of lithium-ion batteries," Schramm states.

"We also plan to move some of our BOOSTCAP product assembly to Lishen in order to leverage our joint process-engineering capabilities,” says Schramm. “Lishen will conduct development and qualification testing on battery-electrode material produced through Maxwell's proprietary dry process, so we see this as a deep and strategically important alliance for both companies."

Qin Xing-cai, Lishen's president, states, "When we determined that we wanted to market hybrid energy-storage products, we identified Maxwell as the ultracapacitor-technology leader, so we are very excited about joining forces for this collaboration."

Lishen currently produces more than 130 million Li-ion batteries annually at its production facility in Tianjin, China. The company supplies rechargeable batteries to multiple cellular-telephone and consumer-electronics manufacturers, including Motorola, Samsung and Apple.

In addition to the hybrid system based on Lishen's batteries, Maxwell has previously deployed its BOOSTCAP ultracapacitor technology to supplement the batteries of large-scale commercial vehicles.