{"id":21232,"date":"2018-05-15T16:53:17","date_gmt":"2018-05-15T06:23:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/?p=21232"},"modified":"2025-05-08T13:39:48","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T04:09:48","slug":"arvio-supercapacitor-battery-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/arvio-supercapacitor-battery-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Arvio Supercapacitor Energy Storage — Powerful Enough To Beat Batteries At Their Own Game?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Will Super Capacitor Energy Storage Save The World?<\/p><\/div>\n

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Note from Finn:<\/strong> People have asked me if I would recommend buying a ‘super capacitor’ over a conventional battery. My short answer is no. Personally I think the technology is too new to consider it in a residential application. As Ronald says at the end of the post: “…they are a new thing and sometimes new things have problems that aren’t apparent at first.” \u00a0Buyer beware.<\/i><\/p>\n

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Australian company Arvio<\/a> is now selling a supercapacitor<\/a> energy storage module.\u00a0 If you go to their site you can see the Kilowatt Labs Sirius module that stores 3.55 kilowatt-hours<\/a> of electricity on sale for $4,950 including GST – here’s how it looks:<\/p>\n

\"Arvio<\/p>\n

But GST may not be an issue because at the Smart Energy Conference in Sydney last month, Peter Wilson of Arvio said it would only be sold to trade, which means only to installers and wholesalers.\u00a0 So if you want to buy one retail you may have to look elsewhere.<\/p>\n

The supercapacitor cells are manufactured in China and the module is assembled in Dubai.\u00a0 Arvio says the supercapacitor modules can be used as drop-in replacements for batteries and will work with any battery or\u00a0hybrid inverter<\/a>1<\/a><\/sup>. \u00a0Three inverter brands specifically mentioned by name were Selectronic<\/a>, SolaX<\/a>, and Victron.<\/p>\n

The modules have a full 10 year warranty that promises they will suffer no decline in capacity in that time and allows for unlimited cycles.\u00a0 This is far superior to the warranty of any battery on the market that I know of.<\/p>\n

The Arvio Independence Day<\/h2>\n

As well as individual Kilowatt Labs Sirius modules, Arvio can provide an all-in-one supercapacitor storage system for use on or off-grid.\u00a0 They call it the Arvio Independence Day<\/a>.\u00a0 In the United States, Independence Day is either about making tea in a harbour<\/a> or aliens blowing up the White House.\u00a0 I’m not sure which.\u00a0 But here it is a large metal cabinet containing a Selectronic inverter, a charge controller, monitoring equipment, and generally two\u00a0Kilowatt Labs Sirius supercapacitor modules for 7.1 kilowatt-hours of storage. More storage modules can be added if desired or you can have just one.<\/p>\n

\"Arvio

This is the Arvio Independence Day.<\/p><\/div>\n

It’s capable of providing 7 kilowatts<\/a> of continuous power and can provide more for brief periods.\u00a0 If there is a blackout it will take 20 milliseconds to switch over to off-grid use.\u00a0 It can be located indoors or outdoors, so presumably the final version won’t have the holes in the top you can see the picture above.\u00a0 The whole system comes with a full 10 year, unlimited cycles warranty with no decrease in storage capacity.\u00a0 It covers everything including the inverter, charge controller, supercapacitors, and the cabinet and its connections and electronics.<\/p>\n

It’s not cheap.<\/h2>\n

With 7.1 kilowatt-hours of supercapacitor storage it will set back a homeowner roughly $25,000 including GST.\u00a0 But one of its features is if you move you can take it with you, so you don’t have to leave your investment behind.<\/p>\n

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This is not the Arvio Independence Day.<\/p><\/div>\n

Advantages Of Supercapacitors<\/h2>\n

Supercapacitors have a number of advantages over batteries when it comes to energy storage.\u00a0 These include extremely rapid charge and discharge times and the ability to be cycled a vast number of times without degrading.\u00a0 Arvio says the Kilowatt Labs Sirius supercapacitor module has the following characteristics:<\/p>\n