Hybrid system flywheel success
Dutch partners have optimized a vessel’s power plant operational costs by incorporating a flywheel on a hybrid power plant.
Product Manager Hybrid, Despoina Mitropoulou of RH Marine and Electrical System Design Manager, Jan-Kees de Ronde of Bakker Sliedrecht presented the research paper “Optimizing the performance of a hybrid power plant with EMS including a flywheel” at the International Conference of Smart & Green Technology, SMATECH.
RH Marine developed its own award-winning Rhodium Energy Management System (EMS), using a self-learning artificial intelligence algorithm that automatically distributes the power demand over the available diesel generators and batteries most optimally. Analyzed measured data shows that on seagoing ferries, the EMS saves fuel up to 12 percent, and 11 percent on superyachts. Putting battery shore charging in the mix even reduces fuel consumption on ferries with 38 percent.
In order to optimize the total performance of a ship, RH Marine and Bakker Sliedrecht further optimized the TCO of a ship by incorporating a flywheel on a diesel generator-battery hybrid power plant. The first step closer to minimizing TCO, achieved by incorporating battery lifetime prediction and power consumption forecasting in EMS. In the presented paper, the impact on a hybrid power plant with an EMS of a flywheel implementation for a cutter suction dredger study-case is described.
Using a simulation for the hybrid super yacht, Mitropoulou and de Ronde demonstrated that battery lifetime can be extended by adapting the optimization algorithm to carefully include lifetime determining quantities, like the state of charge (SOC) and the magnitude of charging and discharging currents, thus optimizing the TCO. Additionally, for a ferry with a forecasted load demonstrated that adapting the algorithm to include forecasting of the power consumption can improve the desired operation. Finally, for the load profile of a hybrid cutter suction dredger, implementing a flywheel can have a major impact on TCO minimization.
Flywheels have excellent peak-shaving qualities for mitigating power peaks taking place in very short time frames without being penalized in operational lifetime. So with this study case on such a load profile, it is expected, that adding a flywheel would improve the grid stability and the power fluctuations on the battery for these type of vessels while maintaining the lifetime and the installed capacity.
By Jake Frith
