Latest Maritime Battery report shows evolving sector trends
The maritime battery sector is rapidly evolving, with more approvals, different chemistries and greater vessel electrification, a report by the Maritime Battery Form has shown.
The report, which is only available to members and was also given to Maritime Journal, says that the total number of type approvals from all societies has increased from around 70 two years ago to just over 200, led by the class societies CCS and DNV, with around 45 approved battery systems each.
China leads in new type approvals, followed by South Korea, then Germany’s Tesvolt Ocean, and Sweden’s Echandia Marine.
While there is an increasing number of battery chemistries, lithium-ion NMC batteries still lead the pack – controversial because the ‘C’ stands for ‘cobalt’, much of which has traditionally been sourced from children mining the metal in the Congo.
However, lithium iron phosphate batteries (LFP), which do not contain the metal, are increasing in share.
According to the report, the majority of ships using batteries are passenger vessels, ie ferries, but cargo vessels, tugs, offshore vessels, fishing vessels and ‘other’ vessels have all increased their share. Most are coastal vessels, inland and offshore coming second. Port vessels, while a small number still, have increased by share.
Average battery capacity per vessel, says the report, has gone up and down and currently stands at around 1250kWh.
By region, Norway is singled out as having by far the greatest number of battery ships, 34% of the global total, with Europe a close second with 33%. Asia is still not a big taker, with 12%, and the Middle East and Latin America’s shares too small to make it onto the pie chart. North America takes up around 4% of the global total.
The vast majority of ships using batteries are hybrid (69%), with plug-in hybrids (14%) and full-electric (16%) almost equal in second place.
