- From automotive to public transportation to future utility-scale energy storage SCiB TM by Toshiba has got you covered
electric buses
Toshiba has been researching and producing battery technology for decades and in 2011 Toshiba engineers developed the SCiB TM – a rechargeable super-charge ion battery which has revolutionized battery energy storage.
Toshiba’s SCiBTM is a safe, high-performance, long-life, rechargeable battery solution for a wide array of applications ranging from electric vehicles to future grid energy storage.
SCiBTM batteries can be charged quickly and have excellent thermal performance, reducing or eliminating the need for battery cooling. The lithium titanium oxide chemistry contained in SCiBTM is not susceptible to thermal runaway or lithium metal plating, providing exceptional battery safety characteristics.
SCiBTM also offers minimal capacity degradation, even after tens of thousands of times of charge-discharge cycles. This operational life often exceeds that of the applications in which they are used, thus eliminating the need for battery replacement and reducing the environmental impact of waste batteries.
Toshiba’s SCiBTM is widely used in vehicle, industrial and infrastructure applications, including automobiles, buses, railroad cars, elevators and power plants.
A practical use of Toshiba’s SCiB TM is in the trains operating on Tokyo Metro’s Ginza Line, Tokyo’s oldest subway line. 40 new Ginza Line trains which started operations since April 2016, have emergency running systems, based on Toshiba’s SCiBTM.
The SCiBTM is used as an emergency battery to supply electric power to support an evacuation operation in the event of a power outage. In this situation, the emergency running systems allow the trains to carry passengers to the nearest station, while maintaining passenger safety and comfort. This avoids the scenario of leaving trains full of passengers in a pitch dark tunnel and having passengers walk to the nearest station. In addition, with the train-borne battery system, there is no need to connect outside power to the train to move it from the maintenance area to the main line.
Apart from supporting a train-borne emergency system, Toshiba’s SCiBTM can also be used with the traction energy storage system (TESS). The TESS can store regenerative energy generated by trains in the SCiBTM as they decelerate upon entering a station and discharge it Toshiba’s SCiB TM to accelerating trains. The TESS can be an independent power source to bring the trains to the nearest station safely in event of power outage.
At Toshiba’s Corporate Research and Development Center, we’re continuing further research and development in controlling material composition at the nano-metric level to achieve even higher energy densities.
