Analysis of supercapacitor charge redistribution through constant power experiments

A comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the supercapacitor characteristics is critical for the design, management, and control of supercapacitor-based energy storage systems for a variety of applications. This paper analyzes the charge redistribution behavior of supercapacitors through constant power charge and discharge experiments. An equivalent circuit model is adopted to determine the initial state of the charge redistribution process and a formula is derived to relate the supercapacitor voltage change to the initial state. Two sets of constant power experiments are conducted to verify the analysis. These analytical and experimental results reveal that the supercapacitor voltage change during charge redistribution is dependent on the initial state built by the constant power experiment.