4 ms·

I mean it’s a press release. Those don’t cost anything. The only application of this that seems half feasible is maybe some kind of post-disaster recovery wher

by CPLX 3y ago

I mean it’s a press release. Those don’t cost anything. The only application of this that seems half feasible is maybe some kind of post-disaster recovery where for whatever reason you’ve ruled out using a generator.

jacquesm 3y ago
Even then you'd probably be better off shipping a mixed load of diesel trucks and large generators. Even the larger version doesn't make a whole lot of sense, you'd be looking at keeping the ship in port for quite a while unless those batteries are going to be charging and discharging at very high rates but that would shorten their life (and hence the number of trips). They are aiming to do 'short runs' only (100 km is mentioned in the article but the economic range is a bit larger) which makes it even more dicey economically. Their transportation costs per KWh as quoted in the article exceed current generation costs by a factor of three already. 214 MWh is a proverbial drop in the bucket on grid scale and even 10x isn't all that much, and you can only deliver power if you have enough of those vessels to guarantee overlap at the destination or you're going to have to deal with outages. I wonder who is investing in this project.
- seized 3y ago
  Maybe they plan to swap batteries in and out of the ship, have a rotating set of ten (or whatever) batteries, one discharging, eight charging, load the tenth with a crane, swap out for the discharged one, cycle through...
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    No, I watched their video and it says the batteries are meant to stay on board.
  - iancmceachern 3y ago
    There are lots of grid scale battery companies, A123 was one, that were (still are?) Building giant battery packs into shipping containers as a way to store and deliver energy to the power grid during high/low cycles. One could conceive of just using those and loading and unloading them just like standard containers on a ship.

by CPLX 3y ago

jacquesm 3y ago

Even then you'd probably be better off shipping a mixed load of diesel trucks and large generators. Even the larger version doesn't make a whole lot of sense, you'd be looking at keeping the ship in port for quite a while unless those batteries are going to be charging and discharging at very high rates but that would shorten their life (and hence the number of trips). They are aiming to do 'short runs' only (100 km is mentioned in the article but the economic range is a bit larger) which makes it even more dicey economically. Their transportation costs per KWh as quoted in the article exceed current generation costs by a factor of three already. 214 MWh is a proverbial drop in the bucket on grid scale and even 10x isn't all that much, and you can only deliver power if you have enough of those vessels to guarantee overlap at the destination or you're going to have to deal with outages. I wonder who is investing in this project.

seized 3y ago
Maybe they plan to swap batteries in and out of the ship, have a rotating set of ten (or whatever) batteries, one discharging, eight charging, load the tenth with a crane, swap out for the discharged one, cycle through...
- jacquesm 3y ago
  No, I watched their video and it says the batteries are meant to stay on board.
- iancmceachern 3y ago
  There are lots of grid scale battery companies, A123 was one, that were (still are?) Building giant battery packs into shipping containers as a way to store and deliver energy to the power grid during high/low cycles. One could conceive of just using those and loading and unloading them just like standard containers on a ship.