Technical advisory
Read the latest articles and use the Echandia Design Tool to explore sizing and performance, or contact us for support and technical insights.
Explore the path to safer marine electrification
Lifecycle support for Echandia battery systems
Your complete guide to battery systems
Every battery system relies on a Battery Management System (BMS). In a maritime application, the BMS is critical as it ensures the battery operates safely, delivers stable performance, and reaches its intended lifetime without premature aging or failures.
Improving energy efficiency and reducing fuel consumption have become some of the most critical challenges for shipowners and operators, driven by increasingly stringent regulatory requirements. For larger, ocean-going vessels, batteries can perform several important functions that reduce fuel consumption and improve overall energy efficiency. These functions typically include peak shaving, spinning reserve, energy harvesting, and backup power (UPS), as described below.
A common misconception surrounding LTO-based marine battery systems is that they are heavier and require more space than alternative solutions. This perception largely stems from evaluating batteries at cell level, rather than at system level. When assessed from a system perspective, LTO chemistry can in fact enable battery systems that are both smaller and lighter.
Most vessels can be electrified, either fully or partially. Conditions like availability of charging infrastructure, route length, available charging time, and maximum weight requirements can impact to what degree av vessel can be electrified. Many larger ships install batteries to become more energy efficient or handle peak loads.
How fast a battery can charge, and discharge energy is called C-rate. High C-rates means faster charging. C-rates are closely related to the batteries underlying chemistry and other system components. So it depends on how much power is available and which chemistry is used. LTO can be charged much faster as a battery chemistry compared to its competitors.
They can be huge, but it depends. Size is limited by how much the vessel can carry and still safely operate in relation to the power it needs. That means, that the ultimate size and weight is determined by the energy requirement for the given application, and its access to charging infrastructure. In maritime, the smaller the system, the better.
Comparing weight per kWh between different systems will be misleading. Systems that require less buffer energy to meet the energy requirements over the lifetime, will be lighter on system level, even though they might be heavier when compared on a kWh-basis. To know the exact weight for the system, the operational profile needs to be understood.
The lifetime of a battery, or its cycle life is mostly dependent on the underlying battery chemistry. It is also dependent on how the battery is being used over the planned lifetime. The level of usage, or DOD (depth of discharge) is an important variable when designing a system that will be in use for a long time. LTO batteries can guarantee a lifetime of 15+ years which is considerably longer than any competing battery chemistry.
It depends. To calculate a system price, a number of factors needs to be known. This is what we call the operational profile. The cost per kWh can be misleading since the system size (number of kWh) can sometimes be substantially less, than what is recognized at first analysis.
Safety is a huge issue for batteries in general, and for maritime batteries specifically. A safe battery system requires several layers of system characteristics and measurements. The cell chemistry that is used in the battery is fundamental, on top of that all systems need monitoring and prevention methods, as well as suppression systems, gas vents, sprinklers etc.
Our team has worked with leading shipyards and system integrators, from ABB to Siemens, to electrify ferries, tugs, navy and transport vessels. We know what it takes to build a safe, durable system that performs every day.
