Setting Course, an ABS Podcast

The Power of Electrification in Shipping with ABB

• American Bureau of Shipping • Season 1 • Episode 29

Share episode

The development of electrification and battery technologies is driving new efficiencies for the maritime industry, especially for short-range vessels like tugs and ferries.

In this episode of Setting Course, an ABS Podcast, Olli Tuunainen, Local Business Line Manager for ABB’s Marine and Ports Division in Singapore, and YunTao Chen, head of the ABS Global Electrification Center in Singapore, joined host Brad Cox to discuss the benefits, safety considerations and future of maritime electrification.

Share this episode on social media, leave a review on your favorite podcast platform or send feedback to podcast@eagle.org. Learn more about how ABS is supporting the maritime industry at www.eagle.org.

Key Points

  • Challenges in electrification include technology limitations, awareness among stakeholders, and the need for a stable energy supply.
  • Safety concerns regarding battery technology and the transition from AC to DC power systems are critical for the industry.
  • Current trends include the growth of hybrid applications, retrofitting existing vessels, and the development of charging infrastructure.
  • Collaboration between maritime and land-based energy sectors is essential for successful electrification.
  • Regulatory frameworks must evolve to support the safe implementation of electrification technologies.

Guests

Olli Tuunainen is a Local Business Line Manager for ABB’s Marine and Ports Division in Singapore. He has close to 20 years of experience in electrical systems and project operations for various industries and countries, always within ABB. Olli holds a Master of Science degree in electrical engineering from Tampere University of Technology in Finland. ABB Marine and Ports is committed to sustainable maritime future and prepares both vessels and ports to meet the demands of tomorrow.

Dr. YunTao Chen is the head of the ABS Global Electrification Center in Singapore. He has a background in Aerospace Engineering with a Ph.D. degree from the University of Michigan. He started his career in the energy sector, held several positions in the US and Germany at Siemens Energy. Prior to joining ABS, he was leading the R&D team for sustainable solutions (such as battery energy storage systems and fuel cells) at Rolls-Royce in China. At ABS, Dr. Chen is leading the Global Electrification Center in Singapore to promote marine electrification in the Asia Pacific region and across the globe.

Brad Cox (00:07)
Welcome to Setting Course, an ABS Podcast, where we're charting the future of the marine and offshore industries. I'm your host, Brad Cox, and today we're talking about batteries. But not just batteries. Electrification is one of the maritime industry's fastest developing energy solutions. 

We've already seen a wide range of deployments in short-sea ferries and harbor craft. There's fully electric, there's hybrid, there's new battery types. And now we're starting to see electrification make some inroads into maybe deep-sea shipping, but more on that potential later. 

To break down some of major trends, it's great to have a pair of experts on the show who are really at the front lines of this transformative technology. 

First, it's a pleasure to welcome Olli Tuunainen, Local Business Line Manager for the Marine and Ports Division of ABB in Singapore. Thanks for joining us, Olli.

Olli Tuunainen (00:50)
Thank you, Brad. Thank you for inviting me. I'm always happy to talk about our favorite topic, electrification.

Brad Cox (00:57)
And also joining us from Singapore, it's great to have YunTao Chen, head of the ABS Global Electrification Center. Thanks for being on the show, YunTao.

Chen YunTao (01:04)
Of course, always a pleasure.

Brad Cox (01:06)
So, I mentioned fully electric vessels earlier, and I think a lot of people may default to that vision when talking about electrification. But the technology and its potential applications are really much broader than that. Olli, starting with you, how do you and ABB really define electrification, and what else falls under that umbrella?

Olli Tuunainen (01:25)
Thanks Brad. So I'll start by saying that we at ABB and especially ABB Marine and Ports, we believe that there are three pillars for the sustainable transition for the maritime. So first is the shift to cleaner energy, the second is the increase in energy efficiency and the third is electrification. 

And when we talk about electrification, what we mean by that, we mean that it's the use of electrical power to drive efficiency, reliability and sustainability across all the vessel operations. It's not only for fully electric vessels or it's not only for electric propulsion, but everything related to the vessel operations. 

And I think it's important to remember that still most of the vessels at the moment are mostly not electrified. So most are very conventional mechanical vessels, but the electrification is a rapidly increasing trend. And we can do the electrification in incremental steps, so to say. 

What we like to talk about at ABB is to start with the electric backbone. So, it's the power distribution, which can be either AC or DC, which, DC is the more preferred distribution system for electrification because it increases much more flexibility for future. And then based on that electric backbone we can build towards this hybrid or even the full electric systems or vessels.

When we talk about electrification, we can also think about retrofitting existing vessels and also we should not forget the shore side, so the whole port infrastructure and the charging infrastructure. So I think that's in brief the whole electrification umbrella.

Brad Cox (02:53)
Thanks, Olli. And YunTao, I'd like to get your view on this. When we talk maritime electrification, what falls within that scope?

Chen YunTao (02:59)
Yeah, thanks Brad. I think Olli already covered it quite comprehensively from the OEM perspective. I have a simple rule of thumb to consider whether an asset is electrified or not. I consider a power system as starting from the generation side, eventually leading to the utilization side. And in between, you have transmission, distribution, and storage. 

If in a system, a higher percentage of the power that's coming from the generator to the consumer is transmitted via electrical power, then I consider that a more electrified system. That is a basic rule that I have been using to judge whether a system is electrified or not. 

In that case, you can see battery is just one part of this, it's only regarding how to store the energy in the system. As long as the power itself is passed through the electrical system, there will be many challenges and advantages come with it — like flexibility, like high efficiency, what Olli mentioned.

Brad Cox (03:54)
Right, that kind of gets back to what I said in the intro, is we're talking batteries, but it's really not just batteries. Sticking with you, YunTao, what's been the driving force behind the development of these technologies for shipping? You know, I know there's the regulatory aspect, but how does electrification change the game?

Chen YunTao (04:09)
Yeah, I think electrification is kind of special, right? Nowadays, people normally talk about electrification under the umbrella of sustainability. But if you take a deeper look at electrification, we have been doing this for two centuries, ever since the second industrial revolution. 

So why have we been doing that? I think under the right operating conditions, electrification actually brings you higher flexibility and higher efficiency. That means lower fuel costs. No matter what kind of fuel you are using, lower fuel consumption always means lower financial burden. So, there's always a constant economic driver behind the electrification push, which I think makes it unique in a lot of the sustainability drives today that we're talking about.

On top of that, if you have an electrified vessel, you have lower emissions, cleaner working environment, quieter working environment, which is always a bonus for the people on the front line. So, I think that's what has been driving the push towards electrification.

Brad Cox (05:08)
Thanks YunTao. And Olli, what about from ABB's view? What does electrification achieve for the industry?

Olli Tuunainen (05:15)
Yeah, I will start by seconding YunTao’s comment about the fuel consumption. I think the first very important fact is that the fuel consumption is lower in many cases, which means lower operating costs over the vessel lifetime. 

So, the flexibility that the electrification provides, especially when we build on the DC distribution such as ABB's Onboard DC GridTM, it allows the power plant of the vessel to run at an optimal load point, for example, which means lower fuel consumption on board. 

And then when we add the batteries to the system, then of course we have a much more advanced availability for peak shaving, absorbing load fluctuations and also the further efficiency improvement on the vessel. So that translates to real fuel savings on board. 

And of course then another topic is the efficiency gains, which is not only through the hardware on board but also the control software on board. So, when we have a smart power management, power and energy management system on board, that helps to optimize the efficiency of the vessel, which of course again leads to further fuel savings.

One more example that I would like to point out for how to optimize fuel consumption and efficiency is the closed bus protection concept that we have introduced for DP operations, so dynamic positioning operations. So closed bus setup is nothing new in electric vessels as such, but I think in the DP vessels it has been very rarely adopted until now because maybe there has been fear for losing redundancy or the protection concept is not enough. But currently the protection systems have advanced so much that the closed bus can be achieved in DP operations, which means that less generators can be connected across the redundancy zones. That's a big step in improving the efficiency and reducing the fuel consumption on board.

Brad Cox (07:08)
So, Olli, I'd like to pivot a little bit and talk about the big hurdles for the technology. I think the world saw some of this evolution with the automotive industry and electric vehicles in the last decade. So, what are the limiting factors for maritime electrification? And, you know, how does the industry get past those?

Olli Tuunainen (07:25)
The punchline probably is that one size does not fit all. So there are vessel segments where electrification, as YunTao mentioned earlier, electrification has made sense since a long, long time already. And there are certain vessel segments, when we talk about ocean-going large vessels, where we simply don't have the technology, for example batteries, where we can go full electric now. Or we could, basically, but it doesn't make sense economically. 

The first thing is to try to find out what is the right way to electrify the vessel for different use cases. I think a second one that I would like to point out is the awareness. The technology might be there and is there for several vessel segments, but the awareness among the stakeholders is something that must be built still. So when we talk about everybody involved from ship designers to crew on board, going from a mechanical vessel to electric vessel is a big change. So even if the technology is there, the mindset and the awareness of the technology must be changed. 

And I think this is an analogy also to the electric vehicles, where at some point it just flips over and then of course the adoption will be even faster.


Brad Cox (08:32)
Thanks, Olli. And YunTao, what about your view on the big hurdles for the technology?

Chen YunTao (08:36)
I actually want to echo what Olli just mentioned regarding on the hurdle side of electrification. I fully agree with Olli's two major points. I just want to put in some of my observations, especially from a Singapore perspective. 

When we're talking about maritime electrification, one important thing is that maritime electrification cannot be a standalone thing. It cannot just be advanced within the maritime industry. When we're talking about electrification, we need to have a very stable supply of the energy, which in a lot of cases wouldn't be generated by the maritime assets, it’s coming from land. We require the charging infrastructure, which Olli mentioned. So, all of that needs to come from a holistic national strategy, especially for a smaller island nation like Singapore. 

That's one thing that poses a challenge that probably was bigger than the other specific challenges that we're facing in the maritime industry. Because we have to move it one level higher, to the whole society level, to think about how can we synergize with other sectors to together drive a higher efficiency. 

I think another thing that Olli mentioned I would fully agree with was when you have a new kind of asset, the adoption of those new assets, it's not just the mentality. It's also people need to learn how to use those things. 

When you have an electric vehicle, you can drive it in a different way as a conventional powered vehicle, just because the technology allows you to do that. I mean, have a higher efficiency, you don't worry that much about the slow revolution or a high torque region. That vehicle enables you to operate more efficiently. Same thing applies to electric vessels. Electric vessels have their own drawbacks, but also have unique advantages. How can the owners understand and fully utilize those advantages offered by the asset? I think that's another thing that will significantly advance electrification. 

And then last, I think it's more of an OEM topic, also Olli touched this point, electrification isn't for all the assets at this moment. Sometimes we think, why? I think one thing that we all have to recognize is that at very high power range and then very consistent load levels, electrification or electrified system is not yet at the same efficiency level as a mechanical drive. So, if you have a constant high load, you still have the efficiency deficiency compared to mechanical drives. It's not that we have to solve it, but we have to recognize some of the points that's making electrification not suitable for those applications. 

Brad Cox (11:04)
YunTao, some of the technologies we've talked about on the show often develop faster than the regulations,. Are there regulations specific to electrification and how does safety factor into its growing use?

Chen YunTao (11:15)
That's a very big thing and of course that's the heart of our organization, American Bureau of Shipping. We're all about maritime safety. Previously I mentioned we have been working with electrification for, I don't know, two centuries. So most of the safety issues related to electrification have been solved by our ancestors. But there are new things. 

Today we talk about the transition from alternate current to direct current, AC to DC. High-power DC application brings itself a lot of benefit on efficiency, but also poses a lot of challenges on protection mechanisms. Like Olli mentioned, ABB has been working very hard on this, enabling those technologies. And of course, on our ABS side, we have to make sure our rules and standards goes ahead of the industry. When those technologies are ready to be implemented, there are relevant standard rules already developed.

The other very hot topic is the safety of batteries. People all hear about battery incidents. Even though I'd like to point out, at least from statistics, electric vehicles are not more prone to fire compared to conventional vehicles. But still, we understand there's a considerable amount of concern over safety of batteries. 

So, how can the community, the users, the owners, judge what's the best way of implementing new chemistries, with different use profiles? On all those fronts ABS has been or is developing Rules and standards. I'm actually pretty confident that we are addressing those concerns.

Brad Cox (12:34)
Thanks, YunTao. And Olli, did you have any commentary to add on to the safety aspects of it?

Olli Tuunainen (12:39)
Yeah, I think it's a very valid point that there are concerns and there are maybe new concerns about, for example, battery safety. But, as just said by YunTao, there are different safety aspects for different systems. 

So, it's not like the conventional vessels have been inherently safe from all the aspects. There are new things when we electrify vessels and different protection systems. But also from the ABB perspective, we have been doing the electrification also in different industries, of course, not only maritime, but for decades. And as with any power system, you have to know how to put the protection and safety measures in place to ensure the safe operation. 

And our approach, of course, is then to closely collaborate with classification societies, for example, such as ABS and flag States and different regulators so that we are sure that we are following the requirements and we are validating the safety margins and we are defining the best practices together. So, I believe this is a journey that we are all on together.

Chen YunTao (13:37)
I want to add to his point just now. A lot of those new technologies are new for the entire industry, for the entire society. 

So, from the class perspective, when we devise the rules and standards, we need to be conscious of that. What I mean is that we need to also see that our point of developing rules and standards is to enable the application of those technologies. 

For us, we have a concept of cost of compliance. We need to achieve a right balance of always sticking to the fundamentals on safety, but also make sure, in the meantime, that our Rules and standards leave enough space for the technology to be developed, to be matured, and eventually see a wide application. Striking that right balance, for the new technology especially, is actually a very critical factor, which is a very challenging aspect. ABS is, of course, always working together with partners like ABB to address those things.

Brad Cox (14:37)
Well, I think that goes back to one of our older episodes where we talked about the goal-based standards, right? Kind of unleashing innovation and looking at the intent rather than the prescriptive Rules.

So, I think we've kind of touched on this a little bit over the course of this discussion. Olli, what are the big trends in electrification right now? I know you mentioned DC is a big one for ABB right now. But whether we're talking charging infrastructure, retrofitting, maybe the big picture for the industry. What are those big puzzle pieces that are falling into place today?

Olli Tuunainen (15:09)
Thanks, Brad. That's a very good and very wide question, of course. I'll try to keep it somewhat short. I'll start briefly with the DC distribution. This is the first building block for hybrid applications and I think hybrid applications as such is the fastest growing trend at the moment. So the DC distribution, like ABB's Onboard DC Grid, that's the core of that technology. 

So, the hybrid applications such as battery, mainly battery systems of course, that's the most significant trend at the moment. As I mentioned earlier, more and more vessel types are becoming economically feasible to run as a hybrid application. So, ABB has been working on projects with the DC grid distribution since more than 10 years already. And we have close to 100 vessels either in delivery or in operation already.

And they are various, not only small vessels, but they are like all-electric tugs, like we have in San Diego, operating in San Diego. They are electric ferries in Scandinavia, Norway and Denmark. But they are also offshore vessels in Asia, large offshore vessels. So there are various vessel types where the DC distribution and hybrid battery storage in some form makes a lot of sense already. So that's the first.

The second, the retrofitting side, this is definitely something that is growing rapidly also. It's either retrofitting the vessels with, for example, energy storage — that is one side of retrofitting — or retrofitting the vessel to enable shore power when coming into port.

And this is something that we have been doing also at ABB for more than 200 vessels. So this of course then enables the vessels when they come to port to shut down the engines and just connect to shore power. So this is a side of retrofit which is a relatively low investment and quite good value. 

Then the third part about the infrastructure development. Of course, the ports are also evolving — it's not only the vessels. So the important aspect is to remember that the vessel and the port electrification must somehow grow together. When you invest on the vessel side and you have hybrid systems or even full electric systems, then there must be investments also on the port side to be able to charge these vessels. So, we can talk maybe a little bit later about megawatt charging and the grid stability and the grid availability. So, this is something that is definitely a growing trend. 

Maybe last but not least, I would quickly like to mention automation and autonomous systems. I think there was an episode already with one of our expert colleagues about the autonomous system. So, I will definitely not go into the details and I wouldn't have the capacity to do that, but I think we can see already the benefits of the machines working side by side with the humans to make better decisions and also leading directly to fuel savings, increased safety, increased comfort, a lot of things. So, the automation and autonomous systems, that's definitely a growing trend. Maybe a little bit longer term, but it is coming.

Brad Cox (18:02)
Right, you know the point about the charging, it's the same thing we talk about with fuels is chicken and egg. You’ve got to have infrastructure to make the fuels work. So, YunTao, what about your perspective? What are those big trends that are really shaping things right now?

Chen YunTao (18:17)
From our perspective, it's actually largely overlapping with what Olli mentioned. DC transition, from AC to DC, is definitely one very important topic. It drives the efficiency, but also from class perspective on the safety aspect, which we just mentioned. 

The battery safety is another thing very important to class. It's not just about installed batteries, which are part of the marine asset, but it's also about systems or cargoes that contain batteries. Could be an EV, electric vehicle, and it could just be bulk batteries either first-hand or second-hand batteries. That's a very important thing from class perspective. 

The port facility and charging definitely is central to everyone. But I think the last one I would like to mention is the growing interest on setting up an offshore microgrid. Those are high voltage, large scale systems. Think about offshore wind farms, the associated floating substations, and then also the utilization of those high voltage power, sometimes even directly in offshore. For example, you can supply your traditional assets such as an FPSO or FLNG with the power from the offshore. 

From class perspective, how to provide the right kind of certification, standardization for that, that's also a challenge for us. Those four aspects are what we consider as hot topics.

Brad Cox (19:40)
Thanks, YunTao. So, let's talk longer term. What does the future hold for electrification? You know, we mentioned the deep sea shipping earlier and you know, obviously I know there are constraints to that possibility right now, but could we see that sort of large scale, large commercial ships being fully electric in the future? If not, where are things going in the next 20, 30 years? YunTao, you want to start with that one?

Chen YunTao (20:03)
Yeah, sure. If you asked me, of course I would say, electrification has a very bright future. And I'm going to provide reason why. Because to me, electrification isn't really competing with anyone. It's really an enabling factor. If you look into 10, 20, 30 years down the road, it could be alternative, cleaner fuels. It could be other types of power sources, such as nuclear. 

But if you consider all those possibilities, you always see that electrification is going to play a very critical enabling role. If you have new source of energy, most of the time, a large proportion of those new energy sources is going to be connected with the maritime asset in the forms of electrical power. So, you would always need to advance your technology in those aspects. 

As we, as a society, are growing more electrified on the land side, there will most likely be a spillover effect from land to the maritime industry. With cheaper parts, safer batteries, safer components, that will gradually enable more applications, more electrified applications. Some are still not feasible today, but I would say in five or 10 years down the road, they will become a reality. 

Because of the inherent higher efficiency and higher flexibility brought by electrification, there's definitely a bright future for it.

Brad Cox (21:21)
Thanks, YunTao. And Olli, what's your view on the future of electrification? What big thing is going to really revolutionize the technology?

Olli Tuunainen (21:29)
I will start by giving a quick comment on what YunTao just said about electrification not being in competition with the other technologies. So, I think this is exactly how we see it also. ABB definitely sees electrification as having a central role in reducing emissions going further. 

And also the future for the vessel side is somewhat, the vessels are somewhat becoming like intelligent energy systems. The vessels are able to play a more active part, also whether at sea or in port, and to optimize the fuel consumption and the energy consumption in a more advanced way than nowadays. 

A game changer probably in the long term, really long, long term could be nuclear. I think we will not talk about nuclear too much today, but this is I guess at some point will be reality also for maritime. 

But meanwhile of course the future battery technologies mentioned already today a few times. So, when the battery technologies are developing especially on land side, it brings benefits to maritime also. And the more capable batteries and also better power electronics, it enables different vessel types to be even fully electrified in the future. I think this is going to disrupt the market in the years to come. 

Maybe something further to mention still is the charging technology. We briefly discussed this earlier about this megawatt charging system. We have delivered our first megawatt charging project in Auckland, New Zealand, now for ferries there. So this is something where the grid is ready to provide megawatt level power to the ships. It enables the vessels to be charged quicker. There's a much faster turnover at the port. You can benefit a lot from that technology. 

So, this is something which is already on the way, maybe not that long term, but it takes some time, as it did in the EV industry, also. It takes time for the charging infrastructure to develop, but once that's in place then definitely the vessel electrification will grow together much faster than now.

Brad Cox (23:24)
OK, great. Thanks, Olli. So kind of wrapping things up here, it'd be great if each of you could provide some closing thoughts for our listeners. Maybe a big point you want them to take away from this. Olli, you want to kick us off with that one?

Olli Tuunainen (23:36)
Sure. I have a few thoughts on this topic and I think the first one that I want to address is that we are all aware that there's some uncertainty in the regulatory environment, for example, but it doesn't really slow us down. At ABB, we are staying on course. We firmly believe that the electrification is a core technology going forward and a main pillar for decarbonization of maritime.

There are lot of technologies already which are ready. There are technologies which are not ready yet and there are technologies which fit to some segments and do not fit on some segments. So, there's a lot of puzzle pieces in the play and we just have to have the right partners and the right stakeholders to understand what is the best solution for which use case.

And maybe something that I haven't really mentioned yet is that the good thing about electrification is that it is fuel agnostic. So, the clean fuels is a whole other discussion topic. And I know that there have been many episodes in this podcast about the different fuels which are competing, let's say, to be the future fuel. But the electrification is agnostic to that. So, it's mostly focusing on the energy efficiency. Of course, the best fuel is the fuel which is not used at all. 

And maybe the last point from my side is then this electric backbone that I mentioned in the beginning. This is something that I would like people to remember that the electric backbone is the start for future proofing the vessels to where you can build on them going forward when the different technologies become more mature. 

Brad Cox (25:04)
Thanks Olli, and YunTao, any closing thoughts for our listeners?

Chen YunTao (25:07)
I would say again our views are highly aligned. I would basically summarize my takeaways are three major points. The first one is electrification brings with it the efficiency gains, which makes economic sense. Second part, to advance electrification, it needs to be a whole society effort. It needs to be fully integrated and work hand in hand with our partners on land. And the third one, I think, electrification, to borrow the word that Olli used, is a future-proofing technology. It offers the great flexibility, no matter where the future direction will be, it will always be a critical enabling factor for advancing maritime industry or technology.

Brad Cox (25:50)
Okay, thanks, YunTao. So, closing things out, we've covered a lot of ground here. Hopefully we get the chance to come back and talk about some of those emerging battery technologies, maybe that charging infrastructure, you know, in a bit more detail on another episode. But, for today, a special thank you to Olli and ABB for joining us on this episode. And of course, a big thanks to YunTao for representing ABS. It was a pleasure having you both on for this discussion.

Olli Tuunainen (26:12)
Thank you so much for having me.

Chen YunTao (26:14)
My pleasure.

Brad Cox (26:15)
And for everybody listening, thank you for joining us for another episode of Setting Course. Be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode. To keep up with the latest in maritime electrification, visit us at www.eagle.org. Thank you for listening.