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HARSH ENVIRONMENT SURVIVAL RATE
Cold Weather and Remote Locations Demand Highly Survivable Energy
- Remote Camera Stations for Weather
Monitoring - Critical Infrastructure - 12 Off-Grid Remote Sites
- Battery failure rate high
- Accessing sites is very challenging in good weather
- Annual Cost for replacing batteries is very high
- Supercapacitor Trial to test survivability of supercapacitors
- First site working as planned
- Replacing all sites with Supercapacitors increases uptime
28.4 kWh of Supercapacitor Storage
Power Management System
With a large percentage of the Alaska population using light aircraft for transportation, having real-time information about weather conditions is critical for flight safety. The FAA installed and manages a robust network of web cameras to aid private pilots in navigation by providing real-time look at weather conditions. Many of these sites are off-grid and require reliable power to ensure they stay online.
Chemical batteries do not function well and often fail altogether in cold weather. This has proven to be a costly and time consuming responsibility for the individuals that have to maintain the sites. A trial of using supercapacitors was launched in 2021 to see if the survivability of supercapacitors was better than chemical batteries. Supercapacitors can operate in a wider range of temperatures and offer little degradation as the temperatures plummet. The first site trial proved that supercapacitors can survive the colder temps with less failures.