Techno-economic optimization of a supercapacitor-based energy storage unit chain: Application on the first quick charge plug-in ferry

•Paper dedicated to the sizing optimization of a quick-charge ferry.•Development of technical and economic models of supercapacitors.•Optimization taking into account the whole power chain.•Proposal of a charging strategy to increase the lifetime of supercapacitors.

This article elaborates a techno-economic approach that aims to optimize the conversion and energy storage unit chain of the first quick charge plug-in ferry. The choice of supercapacitors is motivated and then compared to other energy storage units for different kind of ferry exploitation. Several models were developed to be coupled with a global techno-economic model considering an exploitation strategy. In the last part, a typical application illustrates the cost reduction compared to the standard sizing approach.