PowerX, a company that plans to use specially designed vessels loaded with high-capacity batteries to transport power from offshore windfarms to shore, has entered into an agreement with a leading Japanese shipyard
PowerX has entered into what it described as a “capital and business alliance” with Imabari Shipbuilding, Japan’s largest shipbuilder, to jointly develop the first ‘Power ARK’ prototype. Imabari Shipbuilding is investing US$8.86M in PowerX.
PowerX and Imabari Shipbuilding aim to co-develop and build a Power ARK prototype by the end of 2025, with the participation of third-party companies as necessary.
PowerX will develop and manufacture the battery storage system and other battery-related systems to be installed on the prototype. The company said that, once the prototype has been tested, it will enter full-scale operation.
“Even the smaller version of the Power ARK, with a capacity of 220 MWh, is expected to transport enough electricity for 209,000 Japanese households in one trip,” said PowerX.
“Using the Power ARK project, PowerX aims to efficiently distribute renewable energy to regions with high demand, ultimately leading to the greater utilisation of clean energy resources.”
PowerX was founded by Masahiro Ito, an entrepreneur who founded Yappa, a software company that pioneered the development of digital visualisation technology. It has big names behind it. Northvolt co-founder and chief operating officer Paolo Cerruti; Caesar Sengupta, former vice president and general manager payments at Google; and Mark Tercek, former chief executive at The Nature Conservancy and a former partner at Goldman Sachs are all non-executive directors.
PowerX highlights the fact that the Japanese Government has set ambitious targets for renewable energy that will require large amounts of power to be generated by offshore windfarms. It also highlights the fact subsea power cables are expensive to build and maintain and can have an environmental impact.
“In comparison, the power transfer vessel stands out as resilient to natural disasters, requires less time and cost for development, leaves minimal impact on the environment and is able to expand the potential of offshore wind power significantly,” the company said.
In addition to building vessels with a massive battery payload, charged by electricity from offshore windfarms, PowerX also plans to build a large-scale battery manufacturing facility.
This giga-scale battery assembly facility would mass-produce batteries for a range of applications including grid storage, electric vehicles and other types of vessels using batteries.
When it first announced details of its plan, PowerX said the Power ARK was based on a stabilised monohull developed by Ad Hoc Marine Designs Ltd.
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