Ioxus asymmetric hybrid ultracapacitor: A new player in energy storage?

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By Andrew Xue

Ioxus â€“ an ultracapacitor and asymmetric hybrid ultracapacitor manufacturer – recently raised $21 million from investors including GE, ConocoPhillips, NRG Energy, Schneider Electric, and Braemer Energy Ventures, an impressive list of investors for a historically undifferentiated ultracapacitor company. 

Its activated-carbon ultracapacitor technology has performed on-par with industry standards, while large competitors like Maxwell Technologies and Nesscap have captured far greater market share in the competitive ultracapacitor space. Conversely, all of these investors are large players in the industrial and grid markets and likely saw Ioxus's differentiated asymmetric hybrid ultracapacitor technology, comprised of a battery cathode and activated carbon anode, since Ioxus is one of the few players developing a lithium-ion asymmetric hybrid ultracapacitor.

While the technology is still under development, the lithium-ion asymmetric hybrid ultracapacitor offers performance metrics that are a compromise between pure ultracapacitors and lithium-ion batteries. Early results show that the hybrid technology offers better cycle life under fast charging and discharging conditions and lower cost per unit of power ($/W) than traditional lithium-ion batteries. With a cycle life of 8,000 and a projected system cost of $0.8/W, asymmetric hybrid ultracapacitors have the potential to surpass lithium-ion batteries in performance, which only garner a 6,000 cycle lifetime and higher systems costs (between $1.1/W and $1.7/W). However, the hybrid technology also suffers from lower power density than ultracapacitors and lower energy density than lithium-ion batteries.

Despite its benefits, this asymmetric hybrid technology will not overthrow traditional lithium-ion batteries in the nascent grid storage market. First, asymmetric hybrid ultracapacitors are still in development, and it is uncertain if they can reach predicted performance metrics after scale-up. Second, there is room for both asymmetric hybrids and lithium-ion batteries on the grid. While the asymmetric hybrids offer benefits under power applications, such as frequency regulation, expect lithium-ions to be favored for energy applications due to their superior energy density and potentially lower cost per unit of energy.

Andrew Xue is a research associate for Lux Research.

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