Supercapacitor Constant-Current and Constant-Power Charging and Discharging Comparison under Equal Boundary Conditions for DC Microgrid Application

Abstract

This work analyzes and compares the differences in efficiency between supercapacitor constant-current and constant-power charging under the same boundary conditions, i.e., charging from the same initial voltage to the same final voltage in equal charging times in both variants. Similarly, supercapacitor constant-current and constant-power discharging are compared under the same boundary conditions, i.e., discharging from the same initial voltage to the same final voltage in equal discharging times for both variants. The study included calculations and virtual simulations based on the most frequently used equivalent RC model of supercapacitors. As a result, theoretical calculations and simulations with the RC model confirmed that constant-current charging/discharging is more efficient than constant-power charging/discharging. The results show that this difference is usually not higher than 1%. Practical experiments confirm an almost equal efficiency of both strategies, but it was difficult to validate exactly such small, theoretically calculated differences. Overall, from a practical point of view, the two charging/discharging methods can be considered as close, and nearly equal in terms of efficiency.