Thursday 16 August 2018

Rolls-Royce full sail ahead with energy storage for ships

A new lithium-ion based energy storage system for ships has been launched by Rolls-Royce.

Dubbed SAVe Energy, it is said to be cost competitive and highly efficient that can be scaled depending on the energy and power requirements of the ships.

According to Rolls-Royce, a vessel can operate on batteries alone when in harbour or for a limited period with zero emission, depending on the specified battery capacity, with energy storage providing load smoothing and reducing the number of generators required to be operating.

It has been developed in partnership with ship firms Color Line, Norled and the Norwegian Coastal Administration Shipping Company, ensuring the system covers a wide variety of marine applications, including ferries, cruise vessels and multi-purpose vessels.

The development work was partly funded by the Norwegian Research Council of Norway’s ENERGIX programme.

Rolls-Royce has been delivering energy storage systems since 2010, however, the actual energy storage units were previously supplied by an external party.

Andreas Seth, EVP Electrical, Automation and Control – Commercial Marine at Rolls-Royce said: “The electrification of ships is building momentum. From 2010, we have delivered battery systems representing about 15MWh in total. However, now the potential deployment of our patent pending SAVe Energy in 2019 alone is 10-18MWh.

“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.”