FLEXSHIP will facilitate the transition of the waterborne sector towards climate neutrality by delivering a digital green concept for electrification of vessels consisting of a Green Digital Twin (GDT) for designing fit-for-purpose vessel electrical grid architectures and integrating a large battery capacity system into two existing vessel (DEMO 1 & 2) electrical systems, a compact, low-weight, modular and simple, high-efficiency battery system, and a safe integration guide of the system onboard ensuring system interoperability.
The overall goal of FLEXSHIP is to develop and validate safe, reliable, flexible, modular, and scalable solutions for electrifying the waterborne sector. This includes the following: designing and developing modular battery packs, ensuring safe on-board integration of the battery system and its electrical distribution grid with the vessel’s existing power grid, optimizing the energy management system (EMS) to maximize operational flexibility and energy efficiency for both fully electric and hybrid solutions, implementing smart control to improve the lifespan of the battery system and critical power components.
The solutions will be relevant to electrifying various vessels with two main approaches:
• Short sea shipping with full-battery propulsion where the power demand of the vessel is 1-2MW.
• Extended ranges with hybrid battery propulsion for larger vessels with propulsion power of 10-20 MW. In FLEXSHIP this is demonstrated in two vessels: one fully electric vessel operating on routes of 50 to 100 nm (90 –185 km) and one electric-hybrid vessel operating on routes of 100 to 300 nm (185 – 555 km).
These different vessels and operation conditions pose different requirements to the battery system, energy and power management, and vessel integration that are all addressed in the project’s design, development, and testing. At the end of FLEXSHIP, the project technology will reach TRL 7.
Once broken down by different categories, the specific project goals are as following:
• Objective 1: Design, verify, and validate scalable and adaptable onboard electric grid and control architectures for various vessel types and conditions.
• Objective 2: Develop a modular, scalable battery system optimized for different vessels and conditions, with high reliability, safety, long life, and low weight.
• Objective 3: Test, verify, and integrate flexible and safe onboard electrical configurations.
• Objective 4: Demonstrate FLEXSHIP solutions on two full-scale vessel demonstrators and evaluate their performance for two use cases.
• Objective 5: Evaluate sustainable operation of FLEXSHIP solutions, reduce noise and emissions, and create a roadmap for fully electric operation on 300 nm routes by 2027.
• Objective 6: Disseminate and exploit FLEXSHIP technology through a business plan and strategy for skill development and technology transfer.
