It’s all to do with better chemistry of the battery technology – Li-ion has got different layers, so there are different types of chemistry you can use to put Li-ion batteries together.
Now looking at lithium neat metal cobalt aluminum or lithium iron phosphate. Lithium has better stability in terms of chemical configuration and thermal stability.
Metal cobalt aluminum or lithium iron phosphate can get us to the levels of voltage we really need.
In terms of application size, the large marine applications will need 2,000-6,000V battery systems, so this scale is up on automotive, which currently uses around 300-700V.
When it comes to temperature levels, operate in 80°C+, but current ship battery technologies are rated between 30 and 50°C, so the range in this respect needs to be improved.
There’s also work that needs to be done to the ship system and electronic management of the battery pack.
Each cell is currently 10-30Ah 3.5V. To get it to where we need it in terms of packaging, it needs to be 60-100A and to get to 3,000V, essentially you need a lot of battery cells to connect together.
The mechanical design for ship battery packaging is also a challenge – it needs to be a robust design with safety first. When you get to these higher voltages and temperatures, you have to make sure you’re designing a safe system.
Source: Electric & Hybrid Marine Technology International
