Designing for Safety - Hybrid Tugboat Battery Safety Vessel Design and Construction Parameters for Lithium Batteries

摘要

An increasing number of workboats are currently being deployed in hybrid form. These hybrids range from newbuilds to retrofits of existing 20 or 30-year-old vessels. Payback on investment is a critical component in the decision to convert or build a hybrid workboat. However, the benefits of redundancy and increased safety are often overlooked. A vessel employing a large battery or energy storage system (ESS) not only operates more efficiently, it also has the ability to draw upon a reserve of energy instantly. This energy may be used as spinning reserve to keep the vessel from harm's way in the event of power loss, provide emergency navigation and hotel loads, auxiliary propulsion power and even extra bollard pull to the main drives in the event of an emergency situation while towing. While these and other advantages, such as the environmental and cost savings benefits, are well documented, the real world experiences of my team will help vessel owners and designers understand how to design and integrate a lithium energy storage system for safe, reliable use, now and for years to come. Simply put, batteries will reduce a vessel's exposure to risk and make it fundamentally safer to operate, while providing economic gain for vessel owners.