January 17, 2019: An UltraBattery made by Furukawa Battery has been installed on a ship for the first time, ship energy systems developer Eco Marine Power announced on December 19.
Shipping company Masterbulk, set up in Singapore in 1995 as a subsidiary of the Norway-based Westfal-Larsen, had the battery system installed on its MV Panamana ship, a large general cargo ship.
The battery pack uses Ultrabattery (UB)-50-12 VRLA batteries and was installed by the ship’s own technical team, with only remote support needed.
Furukawa Battery and Teramoto Iron Works, Eco Marine Power at the end of June 2018 announced the release of two UB-50-12 hybrid battery packs for ship, offshore and land-based renewable energy projects.
These battery packs were made available in 2.4kWh and 3.6kWh configurations. Multiple battery packs can be installed together to provide the amount of energy storage needed from small-scale installations to larger energy storage projects.
The battery packs incorporate UltraBattery technology supplied by The Furukawa Battery Company and a battery rack system developed jointly by Teramoto Iron Works and Eco Marine Power. This battery rack system is scalable, and the design based on experience from EMP’s renewable energy projects on ships. Each battery pack includes UB-50-12 batteries, internal cables and frame kit.
“UB-50-12 valve regulated lead acid (VRLA) batteries are the ideal solution for smart grid, wind power and solar power applications. In addition they are reliable, require little maintenance and are recyclable. UB series batteries have also been approved for use by ClassNK and certified by EMP,” said Yasuhiro Kodaka, general manager for overseas sales and marketing at Furukawa. He said the key to using the UltraBattery on ships was its long life, safety and recyclability.
Because of a non-disclosure agreement about the project he would only say: “We are very pleased to see our high quality UltraBattery series being used on ships. These long-life and very reliable batteries offer a cost-effective alternative to lithium-ion type batteries and are also relatively easier to install and maintain.”
The battery pack will ultimately form part of an Aquarius Marine Solar Power system developed by Eco Marine Power.
Last year, an UltraBattery was deployed by the US Department of Defense at its Cape Cod Air National Guard base in Massachusetts. This Otis Microgrid is capable of responding to outages within less than 60 milliseconds thanks to its UltraBattery support, according to project manager Shawn Doyle, VP operations and energy resilience, with the DoD.
