Does Your Building Measure Up? DOE-Solar Energy Research Institute

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SECTION A

COOPERATIVE RESEARCH

PROJECTS

15

HIGH VOLTAGE CAPACITORS BECOME INDUSTRY STANDARD

THE TECHNOLOGY

LLNL Scientists working on Nova, the world's most powerful laser, are helping industry produce new generations of capacitors for storing very large amounts of electrical energy. Looming on the horizon are capacitors with energy to 50 kilojoules. Some of these capacitors will be smaller than the 25 kilojoule units available today. Livermore is aiding the industrial effort and testing many of the prototypes.

TECHNOLOGY RECIPIENTS

In the early 1980's, LLNL funded research and development programs at General Electric, NY; Maxwell Laboratories, CA and Aerovox Industries, Inc., MA to produce capacitors with greater storage capacity and lower cost. As a result, a new unit was developed. This capacitor was the same size as its predecessor but it stored four times as much energy and cost one-third as much per unit of stored energy. Now all three companies are selling 12.5 kilojoule capacitors worldwide.

Research and development teams from GE, Maxwell, Aerovox and now

Westinghouse are continuing work with LLNL in order to develop a capacitor with even lower cost and higher energy density.

USES AND BENEFITS

Ten years ago, a 5 kilojoule capacitor was the largest available for pulsed power applications. Thanks to an aggressive effort by LLNL scientists, Nova resulted in 12.5 kilojoule capacitors becoming standard. The new capacitor design technology has become known worldwide as the "Nova" capacitor. It is in use today wherever there is a need to store electricity - lasers, accelerators, fusion experiments and defense research. In particular, the improved capacitors are being found in aerospace, where storing the most energy for the least weight is of paramount importance. The new generation of capacitors is available exclusively from U.S. industry.

DOE - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory