Rolls-Royce Launches New Battery System To Electrify Ships (electrek.co) 91
Rolls-Royce, a British power system company (not to be confused with the luxury automobile maker), is launching a new battery system to electrify ships. "Rolls-Royce now offers SAVe Energy, a cost competitive, highly efficient and liquid cooled battery system with a modular design that enables the product to scale according to energy and power requirements," the company said in a statement. "SAVe Energy comply with international legislations for low and zero emission propulsion systems." Electrek reports: The company has been working on battery systems for years, but the recent improvements in li-ion batteries are now resulting in a boom of electrification of ships. Andreas Seth, Rolls-Royce, EVP Electrical, Automation and Control for Commercial Marine, said the company expects to deploy more batteries next year than they did over the last 8 years combined: "The electrification of ships is building momentum. From 2010 we have delivered battery systems representing about 15 MWh in total. However now the potential deployment of our patent pending SAVe Energy in 2019 alone is 10-18 MWh."
Seth said that they are delivering the first system to Prestfjord as part of Norway's effort to electrify its maritime transport: "Battery systems have become a key component of our power and propulsions systems, and SAVe Energy is being introduced on many of the projects we are currently working on. This includes the upgrade programme for Hurtigruten's cruise ferries, the advanced fishing vessel recently ordered by Prestfjord and the ongoing retrofits of offshore support vessels. As a system provider we can find the best solution considering both installation and operational cost."
Seth said that they are delivering the first system to Prestfjord as part of Norway's effort to electrify its maritime transport: "Battery systems have become a key component of our power and propulsions systems, and SAVe Energy is being introduced on many of the projects we are currently working on. This includes the upgrade programme for Hurtigruten's cruise ferries, the advanced fishing vessel recently ordered by Prestfjord and the ongoing retrofits of offshore support vessels. As a system provider we can find the best solution considering both installation and operational cost."
Li-Ion ship technology will be a runaway success (Score:2)
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Thermal runaway is mitigated with special cell construction making sure adjacent cells are not affected and water sprinkler systems to cool away the energy. Most dangerous thing with lithion ion on ships is getting rid of the generated steam and the pressure it generates.
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Most dangerous thing with lithion ion on ships is getting rid of the generated steam and the pressure it generates.
A nice steam turbine will turn that bug into a feature.
Gas Turbine Power (Score:2)
This is essentially the same thing, as the electricity to power the ship will likely come from natural gas power plants, which are usually just a generator hooked up to a gas turbine. At destination sites in Asia, the recharging will likely be done via a coal fired plant.
Re: Li-Ion ship technology will be a runaway succe (Score:2)
Just to clarify the company (Score:5, Informative)
Rolls-Royce, the company, IS actually the 'power' company. The luxury automaker is now a licensed marque that is owned by BMW, but the name is only used by permission.
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Exactly, and the CEO is someone that people here should recognize: he used to be CEO of ARM Holdings.
Good idea (Score:1)
Re:Good idea (Score:5, Funny)
I found a photo of your boat. [local10.com]
Re:Good idea (Score:4, Funny)
MOD PARENT UP (Score:2)
Congratulations, you win the internet for Sunday, August 19, 2018!. Check in next Saturday to see if you win the internet for the week. I'm pulling for you!
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Fanboys tend to be humorless douchebags when their ox is gored.
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Re:Rolls Royce (Score:4, Informative)
I think you might be confusing this Rolls Royce company with... itself. There is only really one Rolls Royce company, they make jet engines, marine engines, nuclear submarine engines, etc. The only confusing thing is they don't make cars, Rolls Royce cars are just a subsidiary of BMW.
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The only reason I can think of is that it lets you run the engines at only the most efficient RPM instead of having to throttle them up and down.
Hopefully someone will clarify.
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This is already the case. Typical Wärtsilä diesel engine, which is used pretty much all over the maritime business is constant RPM diesel.
See:
https://www.wartsila.com/produ... [wartsila.com]
Select engine, click "technical data" and you'll see the RPM engine operates at.
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And gear down when slower speeds are necessary?
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Electronic drive and / or variable pitch propellers.
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That is not a correct interpretation of the figure. Nominally engine under load should be at 600RPM. "Can provide propulsion" is not the same as "should provide propulsion". You'll find this in chapter 3, where engine's technical specs for hooking it into auxiliaries is shown.
And in all other modes, such as almost ubiquitous electric drive, the engine sits at 600 RPM. The engine can be revved down all the way to 380, but operation in lower end RPM is time limited (chapter 2.3).
These are, for all bits and pu
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
It lets you size the engine for most efficient cruising, then you use the batteries when accelerating, or whenever you need a burst of power.
You can recover energy when decelerating, or running the engine at less than peak efficiency.
When docking or headed to port, you can go all electric to eliminate emissions close to shore.
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For cruise liners, the Azipod directional thrusters are electric powered and consume 20 Megawatts each in order to drive the huge bronze propellers.
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This is the best page I found so far:
http://www.cruisemapper.com/wi... [cruisemapper.com]
This image has a graph of consumption/speed
http://www.cruisemapper.com/im... [cruisemapper.com]
Fuel capacity is 3500 to 4000 tones of fuel with about 50/60 gallons to the mile, and 250 tonnes/day.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
The batteries are meant primarily for ferries, which are especially suited for wired charging as they (1) have relatively short routes (2) between set points (3) with relatively frequent and long (un)loading delays, including generally a nightly downtime. So they can charge at night and top-up every time they (un)load passengers.
This means they can use generated electricity, which in Norway (the first customer of these ships) means hydro-electricity, reducing pollution (making the gov't happy) and apparently reducing costs by 80%.
Since the main drawback of all-electric transport is battery weight, it seems that ships, especially ferries and short-distance haulers, should be very well suited to electrification.
[For comparison, a random city car (VW UP) is 60 HP for about 1 ton.for A lorry seems to be about 500HP for at most 50 (metric) tons fully loaded, so about 10 HP per ton. A random ferry (https://www.teso.nl/nl/teso-mainmenu-70/schepen-mainmenu-106/dokter-wagemaker-mainmenu-107) is 4x1.8KW ~ 10kHP for 7k ton, or just over 1 HP per ton. So, the weight of the battery pack will be a lot less (relatively) to to total weight compared to cars or lorries]
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... is 4x1.8KW ~ 10kHP for 7k ton, or just over 1 HP per ton. ...
You can't omit digits, when using a thousands separator, otherwise it is really confusing. 1.8KW is 1800W. 1.800 KW could be read as 1800 KW, could be read as 1800 W. Context (about bothe the subject of the text and cultural origins of the text) can help understand it. I personally dislike thousands separators, because they can be confusing in cases like this.
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" Weight, even on something as weight insensitive as a ship at sea, will become an issue with this kind of energy density differential."
Perhaps the batteries can replace some of the ballast?
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Perhaps the batteries can replace some of the ballast?
Ballast free ship designs are likely to be a thing in the very near future.
https://shipinsight.com/articl... [shipinsight.com]
Ballast is just dead weight, by definition. It is used to balance the ship for safe transport. To do this the ballast has to be able to be moved with relative convenience and speed. A battery pack is unlikely to meet this definition.
A typical Panamax container ship will carry over a million gallons of fuel. To fit through the Panama Canal the ship will have to meet the very tight constraints on de
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Here's my armchair engineer response.
A 400 ton battery would have about the same energy as 4 tons of diesel fuel. 4 tons of diesel fuel is about 1200 gallons. A large ship doesn't get "miles per gallon" it gets "feet per gallon". Getting just orders of magnitude here this is between 100 and 10 feet per gallon. How far will that 400 ton battery take a cargo ship? Somewhere between 120,000 and 12,000 FEET. Again in orders of magnitude this is between 20 miles and 2 miles. The Panama canal is about 50 m
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Thank you too about setting things straight on "green" bio-mass fuels. If we really did need and use them on any massive scale instead of very limited applications we would end up destroying and cutting down everything on Earth till there's nothing but wasteland and desert and goat and cattle skulls.
Only idiots believe this, as a result of being led by the shills of Big Oil. You can make biofuel from algae, and in fact that's the most efficient and effective feedstock. The technology was developed at Sandia NREL back in the 1980s. Today, we have the technology to make not just diesel fuel, but also Butanol, a 1:1 substitute for gasoline. Butanol is made by bacteria rather than esterification or fractional distillation, and therefore can reasonably be carbon-neutral or even carbon-negative.
Topsoil-based
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You can make biofuel from algae, and in fact that's the most efficient and effective feedstock.
And you can synthesize diesel fuel from seawater and nuclear power. As it is now both processes are in the prototype stage.
I have an idea. Let's have both processes compete in the open market. We can have the Department of Energy dump a bunch of money into research on both and see which one will win out in the end.
Oh, but wait, that's already happening. Except maybe it's the Department of Defense that is dumping more money into both right now. The USAF put a lot of money into jet fuel from algae. The
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I agree. Who needs one of those new fangled horseless carriages; noisy, slow, break down a lot. A horse and buggy, boy, it worked for our fathers, grandfathers a long ways back. No need to invest in this troublesome new technology. Mark my words, in fifty years, no one will own these silly horseless carriages!
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People have been working on electric propulsion on sea (and land) for over 100 years and it's still not competing with nuclear, wind, or diesel. You think this will change all that quickly? Even if the problems on this are solved tomorrow this will still have to be brought up to mass production and that will not only take a long time but still face resistance over fears of performance, long term economics, and so on.
What we know does work is nuclear power. It's as "green" as anything and has had 60 years
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Do references to modulating polluting behavior based on proximity to port and/or coastline belie non-comprehension of the finite boundaries of the oceans?
It's a comprehension of political boundaries. California cannot dictate behavior beyond it's borders. As those borders are defined now they include 24 miles out to sea from the coastline. If you want less polluting behavior from these ships outside these boundaries then we must offer them one in which they would choose that give them the most benefit. They can buy this bunker fuel real cheap in places like China. If you'd rather they buy cleaner fuel then offer them something cleaner for a lower price.
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Re:I expect they'll be as successful as electric c (Score:5, Insightful)
they'll be as successful as electric cars
I think you're exactly right. Just like electric cars, they will become the desirable vehicle anywhere they are feasible. Short-haul ferry service, for example. It won't be all pure-EVs, though. The key to understanding who will want this lies in the following sentence:
Ports around the world are banning the burning of bunker fuel. How do you solve this problem? You can carry multiple kinds of fuel, or you can use a hybrid system. You don't need full speed within ports, so the energy requirements are far lower there. You charge the batteries while underway, then you switch to electric while within the region controlled by the port. Once you've left, it's back on the bunker fuel. This solves the problem of poor air quality in the port itself, at least for the pollution produced by ships. The other source of poor air quality in ports is from semi-trucks doing port drayage. Anti-idling laws have improved that problem (especially in California) and hybrids and hydrogen vehicles will essentially solve it completely.
So you're right, we're not going to see the ICE depart shipping any time soon. However, we are going to see electrification of basically all ships, just as we're going to see electrification of basically all automobiles.
In the longer-term, floating solar swarms can be installed along trade routes currently followed by container ships, and used to recharge them in mid-journey. Larger and larger percentages of motive power can be supplied to hybrid ships over time, until they are finally using their ICEs only for emergencies or in inclement weather.
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In the longer-term, floating solar swarms can be installed along trade routes currently followed by container ships, and used to recharge them in mid-journey. Larger and larger percentages of motive power can be supplied to hybrid ships over time, until they are finally using their ICEs only for emergencies or in inclement weather.
Or, we could keep those solar collectors on shore and use them to produce synthetic fuels. Then the fuel can be poured into any existing ship that burns diesel fuel, with no sulfur like in bunker fuel or low grade marine fuel. That means no stopping in the middle of their route, no dangerous at sea recharges, and no fancy batteries that don't exist yet.
Waiting for battery powered ships to become economically viable is, quite literally in this case, waiting at port for a ship that may never come. We've be
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Or, we could keep those solar collectors on shore and use them to produce synthetic fuels.
Your solution is to sacrifice efficiency by adding another conversion step?
Then the fuel can be poured into any existing ship that burns diesel fuel, with no sulfur like in bunker fuel or low grade marine fuel.
It will still have emissions. You will still need a separate fuel tank, and to purge fuel.
Waiting for battery powered ships to become economically viable is, quite literally in this case, waiting at port for a ship that may never come.
They are literally already viable, which is why they're being produced now.
Another alternative for large "green" ships is the use of nuclear power.
Not until the waste problem is solved, and you figure out how to get uranium without strip-mining. Until then, it's the opposite of green.
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Your solution is to sacrifice efficiency by adding another conversion step?
What extra conversion step?
Your solution:
Solar -> electric -> chemical battery -> electric -> motive force
My solution:
Nuclear thermal -> chemical fuel -> thermal -> motive force
There's more than one way to define efficiency. Maybe we should try with energy returned on energy invested, solar gets about 10x return while nuclear gets about 50x. With that kind of return at the start we can tolerate some losses in the conversion later.
It will still have emissions.
Yes, there are emissions. These emissions are collecte
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You really ought to read Entropy, Energy and Order in the Universe. Large and complex systems harvesting diffuse energy flows are just not thermodynamically attractive.
We already do the automotive equivalent with plug-in hybrids, which are charged at night with a large and complex system harvesting diffuse energy flows ("the grid"), and fueled during the day from a large and complex system harvesting diffuse energy flows (the worldwide network of oil pumps, fuel refineries, and fuel transportation systems.) In fact, a seagoing solar swarm would involve a shorter chain than charging from the grid.
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This means nuclear power, or liquid fuels derived from nuclear power.
It is unfortunate that synthetic fuels don't get more attention, because they offer the potential to make all of our existing liquid fueled machinery carbon-neutral. Electric cars will be useful, especially within cities, but they are not a panacea. Energy dense liquid fuels will continue to be indispensable for some applications, including air travel. The focus on electric cars for decarbonization is a distraction, and synthetic fuels should be a higher priority.
Lesser known, is the issue of ammonia for fe
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I see this replacing the "clean" engines they have to run close to land. Then they will switch to the bunker fuel engines like normal at sea and recharge these batteries. This would make the most sense for such a system.
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I see this replacing the "clean" engines they have to run close to land. Then they will switch to the bunker fuel engines like normal at sea and recharge these batteries. This would make the most sense for such a system.
Have you considered how much weight this adds to the ship? Batteries, even the best on the market, weigh 100 times as much as diesel fuel for the same energy output. You can argue on the specific battery technology or such if you like but this is going to be a rounding error. Then consider just how much fuel a ship burns per mile. Here's a reference I found on that:
https://newatlas.com/shipping-... [newatlas.com]
The title of worldâ(TM)s largest container ship is actually held by eight identical ships owned by Danish shipping line Mærsk. All eight ships are 1300ft (397.7m) long and can carry 15,200 shipping containers around the globe at a steady 25.5 knots (47.2 km/h, 29.3 mph) .
At five storeys tall and weighing 2300 tonnes, this 14 cylinder turbocharged two-stroke monster puts out 84.4 MW (114,800 hp) - up to 90MW when the motor's waste heat recovery system is taken into account. These mammoth engines consume approx 16 tons of fuel per hour or 380 tons per day while at sea.
This is an extreme example of a very large ship but also a fairly new design and therefore presumably reas
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To replace the 16 tons of fuel it burns in one hour, for the roughly 30 miles to clear this zone, it would need 1600 tons of batteries to get the same energy.
You are of by a factor 20 - 100. I doubt they would need more than 50 tons of batteries.
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Prove it.
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How to prove a no brainer?
https://stateofgreen.com/en/pa... [stateofgreen.com]
Those ferries are diesel electric hybrids, the electricity they store, is the equivalent of 600 hybrid cars.
That is far from your 1600 tons in batteries
Hint: it helps to have some common sense, or perhaps I lack the understanding what kind of ton you are talking about and american tonns are super small?
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Hint: it helps to have some common sense
You mean like the common sense of comparing a 150,000 ton transoceanic cargo carrier to an 8,800 ton short run ferry? The fuel on the cargo carrier weighs more than that entire ferry.
You are an idiot.
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We talked about a 30 miles trip, right?
The ferry does not weight 8000 tonnes, from what reading comprehension missmatch did you get that again?
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I'm pretty sure you are still an idiot.
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Up to you ...
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It's called the "contiguous zone".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I'm more curious on how California is given such wide latitude on dictating behavior in what I would consider federal waters.
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The Danish Ferries do exactly this, and Blindseer is to blind to see it ...
I like it (Score:2)
I bet those are the Rolls Royce of batteries.
Cars vs boats (Score:2)
If you read that thinking about cars, remember that battery are heavy, and that weight is much more a problem for a car than for a boat.
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If you read that thinking about cars, remember that battery are heavy, and that weight is much more a problem for a car than for a boat.
True, but typically range is much more of a problem for a ship.
Short ferry crossings are the place to start.
Norway feels terribly guilty about getting filthy rich from selling oil, so are willing to burn money to feel green. And those fjords need a lot of ferries.
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so are willing to burn money to feel green. ... ...
Rofl
The electric ferries safe 80% of their fuel costs
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Rofl ... ...
The electric ferries safe 80% of their fuel costs
Good on them. Maybe it even covers the capital cost with no subsidy needed. No need to be so smug. I don't claim to know the cost of diesel vs electricity in Norway, though expect the hydroelectric is cheap.
I mean people there are willing to buy the "eco friendly" even when it costs *more*. Heck, we all are. Just more so in Norway.
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Well, /. anyway ...
you could have read the linked article, they usually are more interesting than the summary on
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If you read that thinking about cars, remember that battery are heavy, and that weight is much more a problem for a car than for a boat.
If you think weight is a problem for a boat more than a car, consider that most road-going vehicles are not ballasted, but most ships are. (As it turns out, rear-engined buses are often ballasted, with steel plates mounted over the front axle, but that's a special case.)
Remove ballast. Install batteries. Problem? What problem?
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You really are illiterate, aren't you?
You just argued with the exact opposite of what he said.
pretty naive (Score:1)
Headline (Score:3)
Rolls-Royce Launches New Battery System To Electrify Ships
That'll take care of those stowaways!