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Battery upgrade is first for Canadian OSV market
Canada’s Atlantic Towing has contracted Vard Electro to supply a containerised hybrid-battery power system for platform supply vessel (PSV) Atlantic Shrike
Atlantic Towing is the first company to implement this multiple mode application of battery technologies on a single vessel in the Canadian offshore oil and gas industry.
Funding for the conversion was provided through a C$4.9M (US$3.9M) grant from Petroleum Research Newfoundland & Labrador as a component of the offshore research, development and demonstration programme of Natural Resources Canada’s Emissions Reduction Fund. The funding will support pioneering upgrades to Atlantic Shrike and allows battery systems to be integrated into the vessel’s existing diesel-electric propulsion plant.
Based in Atlantic Towing’s homeport of St. John’s, Canada, 2017-built Atlantic Shrike is one of four modern diesel-electric builds.
For the contract, Vard Electro will deliver a ‘battery-in-a-box’ solution, SeaQ Energy Storage System. It is anticipated the battery-hybrid conversion will not only yield fuel consumption and emissions savings, but also reduce the vessel’s maintenance requirement without compromising operational performance.
When the grant was announced in May, Atlantic Towing offshore business director Sheldon Lace said, “The proposed retrofit represents a novel approach for the offshore industry. This project combines battery technology that has enabled carbon-free, all-electric operation with a battery-hybrid drive train.”
Following the vessel improvements, Atlantic Towing anticipates reducing greenhouse gas output of Atlantic Shrike by up to 800 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year.
“The innovative design and extended battery size offer a range of benefits and will be a perfect fit for the operational profile of this vessel” said Vard Electro vice president sales and business development Peter Pilskog.
The main system components are all fitted into the self-contained deckhouse to ensure a fast vessel installation while keeping a high focus on the quality. Control and monitoring of the hybrid system is handled by the energy management system that communicates with the existing control systems on board. The SeaQ ESS includes modes for peak shaving, spinning reserve and zero-emissions transit. By using the batteries to absorb and dispense energy through load fluctuations and running the engines at optimal load, significant efficiency improvements in fuel consumption and emissions reduction can be achieved.
SeaQ ESS can be used as a spinning reserve in DP operations, to enhance dynamic response, to perform peak shaving of loads, for strategic loading where the operating point of the gensets is optimised for battery-only operations with zero emissions.
Vard Electro said it will recycle 99% of the SeaQ ESS by battery weight. When a lithium-ion battery has served on board a ship for its intended use and lifetime, the remaining capacity will be used for other purposes in other industries.
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