Category: Articles

By Aubrey van der Hoven, Senior Manager: Compliance and Quality Assurance, PBES

Globally, the marine industry has begun the migration to lithium-ion battery technology as an economical and environmentally acceptable alternative to fossil fuel propulsion. PBES is at the heart of this transition with its leading-edge technology [CellCool™, Thermal-Stop™, E-Vent™, etc.].

However, PBES technology would have had no role in this, unless it had been validated by the regulators of the industry, which include the United Nations, the International Maritime Organization [IMO] or authorized administrations, government agencies [Norwegian Maritime Authority (NMA), Danish Maritime Authority (DMA), etc.], and the classification societies [DNVGL, Lloyd’s Register (LR), etc.].

Witnessed testing started November 2015, and was completed in August 2017.

 Propagation / Internal Thermal Event Testing

For a moment, turn back time to October 1^st, 2015. The PBES test team was huddled together in a closed container on a remote corner of a foothill of mount Crickmer, a specialized fire test site outside Vancouver, British Columbia.

Fifty metres away from the container, on the other side of a 9-foot concrete wall, the PBES battery was being overcharged. No one could go outside the container.

The worst was expected and prepared for – an internal short, rapid release of gas, and an explosion that would send shrapnel flying in all directions…

The test site was evacuated, up to 420 metres away.

The internal short happened, but there was no rapid release of gas, no thermal runaway, and no explosion. Hazardous gas released was too little to be detected by the flow meter or pressure transducers. Several subsequent tests produced the same result. It became clear that the thermal runaway prevention measures were very effective.

The next step was to capture the hazardous gas in bags to measure its volume. Tests were moved indoors. The quantity of hazardous gas released was still too low for the bag sizes.

There was only one measure left, and that is to fill a beaker with water, and allow any hazardous gas released to displace the water. Finally, we managed to capture less than a liter of hazardous gas released over less than 30 seconds.

For DNVGL and NMA witnessed tests, we overcharged two batteries and three batteries respectively.

The results were so uneventful, that NMA requested PBES to showcase 3 more tests of what would happen to a single cell that is not protected by our technology. All three tests without our technology resulted in a dramatic thermal runaway event and fire.

Market Acceptance

PBES currently has 11.3 MWh class certified installations [DNVGL, LR] on 11 vessels, certified by the relevant maritime authorities [NMA, DMA], of which Tycho Brahe [4.16 MW] is the largest hybrid electric ferry in the world. Our ESS is DNVGL Type Approved, and is manufactured in an ISO 9001:2015 certified facility.

Environmental impact offset 1.4 months

Batteries are becoming a relevant and cost effective means of reducing emissions of both greenhouse gases and NOx from the maritime industry. However, not much has been said about the environmental impact of the material extraction, production, and transportation of the batteries. With COP23 talks in progress this presents a great opportunity to explore the full emissions picture of batteries in hybrid and electric ships.

Recently the Maritime Battery Forum in cooperation with Grenland Energy, ABB, and DNV GL for the Norwegian NOx-fund published a report on the life cycle assessment of batteries used in ships. The study was structured as a cost-benefit analysis, where the environmental costs of creating the battery system (the energy storage and power conversion) was compared to the emissions savings of using the battery, and an environmental payback time was calculated.

For a typical electric ferry, the environmental impact of producing the batteries will be offset by emission reduction in the ship within 1.4 months. If batteries are used in a typical offshore supply vessel and used as a partial replacement for a main engine, it takes 1.5 months.

The environmental repayment period is remarkably short. The result clearly shows that marine electrification is environmentally friendly, at the same time it has been shown to also be a profitable solution for ship owners. Furthermore, a DNV GL study, which modelled the entire Norwegian fleet based on AIS data, showed that even if all known energy efficiency techniques are employed in all ship types of the entire domestic fleet, it will not be possible to reduce emissions from domestic shipping by the 40% target. Alternative propulsion such as the use of fully electric vessels is necessary to achieve emission reduction goals.

You can read the full study, published in both English and Norwegian here.

Interview with PBES’s Grant Brown in the September issue of The Navel Architect. Access the digital issues here

Whether for hybrid or fully-powered, advances made in lithium-ion batteries have allowed the technology to quickly establish itself as a viable solution for marine propulsion. Since the launch of the first diesel-electric hybrid ferry, the 43m ro-ro MV Hallaig, in December 2012 the scale and ambition of such projects has moved on leaps and bounds with new projects, both retrofits and newbuildings, announced almost monthly.

Ferries, offshore and smaller vessels remain the focus for battery-powered innovation, spurred on in no small measure by the impetus of tightening emission-control regulations. However, Norwegian travel company Hurtigruten’s announcement in September 2016 that its forthcoming polar expeditionary ships Roald Amundsen and Fridtjof Nansen (due for delivery in 2018 and 2019 respectively) would deploy sustainable hybrid technology is seen by many as a watershed moment. And while its seems unlikely that we will see battery-powered vessels engaged in long-haul transportation any time soon, it no longer seems beyond the realms of possibility.

One company with a vested interest in the technology’s continued progress is Canadian manufacturers, Plan B Energy Storage (PBES). Founded in early 2015 by Brent Perry, the former CEO and founder of rival battery suppliers Corvus Energy, PBES has quickly established itself with an outspoken commitment to marine energy storage ‘done right’, placing a strong emphasis on quality.

Grant Brown, PBES’s VP for Brand and Marketing (and, like Perry, also one of the co-founders of Corvus) explains:

“Due to our experience with other products and projects in the past, when we designed this battery we really looked at how we could make it as safe as possible. The last thing anybody wants is a fire on board a ship. Lithium fires are very unpredictable and difficult to extinguish when they start propagating.”

In order to achieve this, PBES incorporated a number of unique safety features into its batteries. The most important of these, according to Brown, is a patented liquid cooling system they call CellCool.

“CellCool liquid cooling does two things: it provides a safety feature in that it prevents our battery going into thermal runaway [when the heat generated within the cell causes a reaction between the cathode material and electrolyte], because the cooling system can extract more heat than the cells can produce. We’re the only battery in the world that can actually prevent thermal runaway from occurring, not just spreading from cell to cell.”

While other battery systems rely on air cooling, the PBES method is similar to that found in the engine block of a car. Water is circulated through and around the components before exiting. Because the water is low pressure (around 4psi) it doesn’t put strain on the internal seals and components of the cell.

The cooling system is further enhanced by the use of cooling elements within the holders of the battery cells. Unlike many of their competitors, PBES has elected to use aluminium housing for their cells, rather than the more typical (and cheaper) glued-in plastic casing which can’t be serviced and requires the replacement of the entire battery. It also facilitates a unique CellSwap system which makes it possible to replace the cell core — each cell is roughly the size of a magazine and slots into the 10mm thick aluminium housing — without any interruption to the vessel’s service, not to mention cutting down on electronic recycling.

Safety features are integral to every aspect of the PBES battery design, says Brown. The battery’s contactor is built-in and opens up in such a way in that there is no voltage or danger of electrocution while it is inactive. Another is the patented E-Vent system, which channels fumes away through a chimney that leads outside in the event of thermal runaway. Brown says:

“The reason for this is that when lithium cells start to combust they create a combination of hydrogen gases that is very flammable. The smoke in a lithium fire is actually hydrogen gas, you can’t have that in the engine room of a vessel where the firefighters wouldn’t even be able to re-enter the room because of the potential for an explosion.”

PBES – which has already opened regional plants in Norway, Denmark and China – produces two battery solutions: the PBES Power 65, a 6.5kWh (75 ah cells) module optimised for high performance across a five-year lifespan, and the PBES Energy 97, a 9.7 KW/h (112 ah cells) battery comprised of the same parts but a higher energy density cell. Brown explains:

“It’s a 30% decrease in size, weight and ultimately cost. With cell swap it means the owner can start with one type of cell and potentially change them if the ferry changes its route and has different energy needs.”

To read the full article visit https://www.rina.org.uk/

In less then a decade, the hybrid and electric marine industry has grown from a single ship to over 50 large industrial hybrid and fully electric ships.  The battery revolution is hitting the maritime industry at a rapid pace with Norway emerging as a leader, the country is setting targets for 50 electrical ferries in operation by 2021.   A cluster of marine innovation, Trondheim has become the centre for marine electrification, the city holds some of Northern Europe’s most prominent research institutions, as well as marine suppliers and integrators alike setting up shop and working together towards an industrial evolution of clean energy.  Forbes Magazine recently published an article Trondheim Rises as Norway’s Sleeping Tech Giant Awakens, praising the city for its leadership and growth as a European tech cluster.

Like many cities in the world, it has designs on becoming a tech hub and rivalling the likes of local competitor Stockholm and the allegedly more developed clusters of London, Berlin and Paris. Its poaching of the Starmus conference from Tenerife (with an option for the next two years) is a station on the way to that Nirvana, a sign that it means business. The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) a catalyst for the revolution that the city has planned. With more than 38,000 students and 6,700 people employed in R&D, the campus works with SINTEF, the largest independent research organisation to create the bedrock for the emerging tech hub. – Monty Munford, Forbes

PBES is proud to be part of the Trondheim tech hub, as the marine industry leading supplier of safe, high power energy storage systems, we are seeing the rapid up-take of the technology and subsequently have been quick to expand our Trondheim factory. Since the introduction of manufacturing in Norway in November 2016, we have delivered over 10MWh of batteries, delivered the first 4.2MWh ferry system in Denmark which is the largest marine battery ever made, and gone from 4 to 40 employees with plans for an additional 30 people this year. PBES is proud to be located in this center of this prosperous maritime technology environment and contribute to, and benefit from, the knowledge, and technical expertise of the area.

To read the full Forbes article click here.

Brent Perry featured in April edition of Maritime Reporter, page 28-31. Short excerpt below.  Written by William Stoichevski

This is historic, we tell ourselves, as PBES founder Brent Perry walks us around his still labor-intensive “bat­tery factory” in the heart of Norway, from where ship owner capital controls half of the world’s offshore tonnage. Perry, a shipbuilder himself, has chosen to house his first production center here in the haunt of another ship builder, Selfa Arctic, whose move north left for Perry a young cadre of college ­educated workers. They’ll build PBES ‘s stackable configurations of batteries that do not catch fire. Lithium cells’ penchant for catching fire or going into meltdown – so-called thermal runaway – has been the bane of an industry, as it struggles to produce a set that withstands the rigours of actual marine use. European environmental authority tests of”leading” designs showed they were not. Only Pe1Ty’s solution – steeped in decades of energy storage thinking from Western Canada’s lithium battery brain trust – has shown bankable and insurable safety, power management and surplus horsepower.

Read the full Maritime Reporter article here, or visit their website: https://www.marinelink.com/magazines