UCAP Power was founded in 2019 by Gordon Schenk and Joshua Hitt and is based in San Diego, California.

UCAP Power™, a global provider of ultracapacitor-based power solutions across a wide range of renewable markets. Ultracapacitor systems use sustainable based products offering a long-lasting source of reliable high-power energy storage that can help eliminate lead-acid and other hazardous materials in batteries.

Ultracapacitors are a power storage device to rapidly store or release energy.

On July, 2021, UCAP Power announced it has completed the purchase of Maxwell Technologies Korea, the Korean-based ultracapacitor business, as well as other related assets including the Maxwell brand.

With the acquisition of Maxwell Technologies, which includes system patents and products, UCAP Power is building upon its foundation of success in driving innovation across the energy storage market, most recently exemplified by the launch of the Company’s POWERBLoK™ battery replacement solution. POWERBLoK’s unique customer-friendly design incorporates integrated charging and control to offer a scalable, long-life, safe sustainable alternative to lead-acid batteries.

Given the early development stage business model is still unclear, but their products will include the EDLC Ultracapacitor Cell and UCAP POWERBLoK Module (unit sales).

Compared with batteries, ultracapacitors have lower specific energy in Wh/kg and lower energy density in Wh/litre, but their ability to charge and discharge much more rapidly than batteries means they have much higher specific power in W/kg and power density in W/litre.

Along with their very long service lives and tolerance of temperature extremes, it is ultracapacitors’ ability to generate high power for short periods that suits them to load-smoothing and gap-filling applications in renewable energy, industrial, residential and transport markets, including EVs.

Development efforts are now focused on extending the length of time over which ultracapacitors can deliver power, with the aim of competing more strongly with batteries and even eliminating them in some applications.

Their solutions displace 4M lead acid batteries in Wind Turbines and eliminates 35M pounds of virgin lead from the environment leading to a cleaner, healthier planet.

The UCAP Power and Maxwell R&D teams are working on increasing the energy density without giving up power density. Their holy grail is how to get from a short duration ( less than a minute) to make it more like 5 or 10 minutes. That would open up new applications. One such application involves eliminating lead-acid batteries, which are still ubiquitous in IC-engined vehicles and common in EVs for low-voltage auxiliary applications. They are also a target of upcoming legislation because of lead’s toxicity.

Hybridising ultracapacitors and batteries is an important approach to this kind of application. Supercapacitor and ultracapacitor are equivalent terms for devices also known as electric double-layer capacitors, which store charge in electric fields instead of chemical reactions, as batteries do. However, so-called pseudo capacitors use electrochemical reactions, while hybrid capacitors use both types of process, one on each electrode, and both are examples of technologies that blur the lines between ultracapacitors and batteries, and point to future development directions.

In the meantime, ultracapacitors are expanding into more applications in EVs and hybrids. UCAP Power anticipates that they will play an increasingly important role as back-up power sources for advanced driver assistance systems in EVs. If the battery dies on the highway and the car needs a minute to get to a safe stopping place, ultracaps are a great solution.