Validate power networks to prevent new tech causing power blackouts

Complex power systems on ships, including battery packages, are causing more energy blackouts, while geopolitics is causing ship navigation systems to be jammed and spoofed.

In an extreme case, a key highway bridge was destroyed in Baltimore, USA in 2024 by ship Dali, when power losses caused the container carrier to lose propulsion and crash into the bridge with loss of six people.

Another reported accident involved a platform supply vessel striking the Statfjord A oil production platform in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea in 2019. In 2021, a blackout on a drillship caused a loss of position for 90 minutes, leaving the ship drifting, damaging a riser package and activating blowout prevention.

In the past 18 months, OneStep Power has been called out to respond to power incidents on offshore support vessels, container ships, mobile drilling units, tankers, pipelay ships and accommodation vessels.

OneStep Power founding president Mark Craig said more power outages and blackouts are occurring due to batteries and dual-fuel engines being installed on vessels. He was speaking at Riviera’s Annual Offshore Support Journal Conference, Awards & Exhibition, in London, UK, on 4 February.

“There are additional risks from introducing new technology,” Mr Craig said. “In more complex systems, such as with batteries or hybrid propulsion, there is a greater need to validate what is safe.”

OneStep is working with vessel owners and operators to validate power networks on tugboats planned for using hydrogen in propulsion. It has also validated networks on LNG-hybrid offshore support vessels.

“Power networks have different characteristics than these new vessels operating on alternative fuels,” said Mr Craig. “There are unknown failure mechanisms and failure outcomes - traditional validation is not enough. On vessels with batteries and/or hydrogen fuel cells, entire protection systems need to be updated and validated.”

Shipowners need to validate power networks to prevent power losses from these complex fuel systems, to gain enhanced notations from class societies and “assign additional resources - time/money to deliver safe power systems, work with charterers to share the cost and time of validations and incorporate validation as part of the schedule to prevent delays.”