This is getting closer to finding a use case for electrically-powered boats and ships.
From IEEE Spectrum, November 6:
Hull 096 will ferry passengers using over 5,000 lithium-ion batteries
Hull 096 (shown here in a rendering), the world's largest battery-electric ship, will begin sea trials later this year. Incat
The world’s largest battery-electric ship is now testing the limits of what megawatt-scale charging and battery storage can do. Unveiled in May by Australian shipbuilder Incat Tasmania, Hull 096 started receiving electrical charge for the first time last month. The ship’s battery system is 85 percent installed, with two of its four battery rooms charged as of publication.
Once Hull 096 has passed its sea trials, it will be used as a ferry in South America. The ship’s 40 megawatt-hour energy storage system, which Incat says is four times as large as that of any existing ship, has 12 battery arrays with 418 modules apiece, for a total of 5,016 lithium-ion batteries distributed between four rooms. Corvus Energy, based in Norway, built the battery banks, designing them with no mounting racks to reduce their weight (though they still weigh in at 250 tonnes).
Keeping the battery rooms cool is a critical concern. “Systems of this size require appropriate thermal management, which includes temperature monitoring and cooling systems,” says Victor Becerra, a professor of power systems engineering at the University of Portsmouth. “The primary safety focus is thermal-runaway prevention and containment.”
The battery system is air cooled with individual fans for each module, with a layered approach to safety, says Lars Ole Valoen, Corvus’ CTO. Single cell isolation is a key safety element: “In case any cell goes into thermal runaway, it does not spread to the neighboring cells.”
Finnish maritime technology company Wärtsilä supplied the ship’s propulsion system integration; the batteries will power eight axial-flow water jets driven by permanent magnet electric motors. These will be able to keep the ship going for 90 minutes before needing to be recharged....
....MUCH MORE
