IDTechEx Research Survey on the New Super Capacitor Industry
There is a new IDTechEx Research report which says, “Super capacitor markets, Technology Roadmap, Opportunity 2021-2041” has revealed a new obstacle in Super Capacitor industry. In 2010, there were no Chinese manufacturers in the top ten super capacitor manufacturers. In 2020, 40% of them are Chinese. This has been achieved by world-class R&D, being in one of the largest markets globally, strong investment and government support including protective trading. However, China is not leading in capacitor-super capacitor hybrids where the USA saw a $7 million follow on order recently.
Raghu Das, CEO of IDTechEx advises, “Super capacitor manufacturers used to be divided into those making small ones for electronics and those that also made similar flat or cylindrical formats for electrical engineering such as the archetypal 2.7V 3000F cylinder. No longer, a considerable market for even large super capacitors is rapidly emerging. The first big success with large ones is boxed car stop-starters at around 20Wh, with over five llion sold. The number of automakers going for that fit-and-forget grab more electricity, waste less electricity proposition still increases. The natural extension of this logic is the newly committed adoption of larger super capacitors for peak-shaving and acceleration boosting at 30-100Wh across the batteries in mild hybrid cars full hybrid then totally replacing the lithium-ion battery if pure electric cars have not destroyed the hybrid car business by then”.
Raghu Das adds, “IDTechEx measures that 8.75% of super capacitor manufacturers now offer graphene versions, up from zero ten years ago. 43% of the manufacturers using graphene are in China so they are ahead in numbers, though certainly not in graphene super capacitor research, much of which is aimed at the massive emerging market for replacing lithium-ion and lead-acid batteries with the highest energy density of 100Wh/kg or more. In research, this is usually achieved by boosted pseudo capacitance though some perfect the technology of the new commercial 100 Wh/kg lithium-ion super capacitors. 33% of super capacitor material research graphene-centric followed by carbon nano-tubes then metal-organic frameworks”.
Raghu Das predicts, “Acquisitions and mergers will continue. One billion dollar supercapacitor businesses may be created by 2045. If the addressable markets we have analyzed are strongly penetrated, then it will be much earlier. Given past disappointments, our upside forecast currently stands at $7 billion in 2041”.
