{"id":33022,"date":"2023-08-18T10:00:22","date_gmt":"2023-08-18T09:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/?p=33022"},"modified":"2023-08-18T10:06:57","modified_gmt":"2023-08-18T09:06:57","slug":"seabat-project-electrifying-maritime-sector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/seabat-project-electrifying-maritime-sector\/33022\/","title":{"rendered":"The SEABAT project: Electrifying the maritime sector"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cayetano Hoyos Mat\u00edas, Project Engineer at the SOERMAR Foundation and Technological Center, details how the SEABAT project is helping to electrify the maritime sector.<\/h2>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>The International Maritime Organization (IMO) targets 50% lower annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from maritime transport<\/a> by 2050 compared to 2008 and even pursues efforts towards phasing them out entirely.<\/p>\n

Electrification (retrofitted or newbuilds) is one of the solutions to reach this target, and the market for electrified ships is large. The SEABAT project, funded by the European Commission, opens the door for the use of energy storage systems (ESS) as a possible solution for reducing the environmental footprint of the maritime sector.<\/p>\n

Challenges of electrifying the waterborne transport sector<\/h3>\n

Achieving these environmental objectives will not be an easy task, with the main issue being the type of battery systems used within the waterborne transport sector. Batteries are oversized by a factor of two to as much as ten to guarantee a specified capacity over a battery lifetime of approximately ten years. The oversizing brings high costs, which are an important barrier to increasing the market share of electrified ships. The challenge is to reduce the cost of large waterborne transport battery systems substantially.<\/p>\n

SEABAT: A hybrid concept<\/h3>\n

That is why the overall objective of the SEABAT project is to develop a fully-electric maritime hybrid concept<\/a> based on combining modular high-energy batteries and high-power batteries, novel converter concepts, and production technology solutions derived from the automotive sector.<\/p>\n

Hybridisation allows the system to obtain high-power and high-energy capabilities while using the best properties of both energy storage devices. In hybrid configurations, the high-power part supports the high-energy battery or vice versa, depending on the requirements. High-energy devices will typically provide long-term power needs, whereas high-power devices will cater with short duration but higher-power needs. Therefore, the need for oversizing can be reduced and system lifetime can be extended. The load distribution between both storage devices is determined by the operating strategy of the energy storage system.<\/p>\n

The advantages of hybridisation include:<\/p>\n