This week, the maritime industry gathered in Amsterdam for the annual Electric & Hybrid Marine Expo. After a two-year covid hiatus, the doors we’re open again with delegates travelling in from all over the world.

Virtually all the industry players were there, to display their latest news and meet operators, shipyards and integrators. For Echandia, having been a part of the E&H Marine Expo since the early years, its current size is telling of how the industry has grown.

Electrification of the maritime industry is now at a point where a critical mass of ship operators have first hand experience of batteries. The industry actors, and customers are well informed and knowledgeable.

Impressions and takeaways

Summarizing the three days packed with impressions isn’t easy, but here are three things that the Echandia team thought was worth noting. Do you agree?

The industry is entering implementation mode

A common theme from visitors, speakers and exhibitors is that all maritime applications, primarily vessels, harbor facilities, and offshore sights are now being electrified – either fully or partially. And, as mentioned, most operators have gained some experience of electrification projects. In many cases, enough to avoid the biggest pitfalls, but in some cases still figuring out how to evaluate and design the entire driveline, including energy storage solution to be optimal for the operational profile they’re aiming for. In this “next phase” – the implementation mode – that the industry is entering, it’s a matter of getting all the essential building blocks in place to achieve complex projects. Apart from technology, knowledge and experience is an important qualification to deliver.In this context, suppliers with a clear value proposition in their product will benefit from the industry becoming more mature.

Safety – of course

Safety is – for good reasons on top of most people’s agendas. Or as someone put it. An EV has a CAPEX of $50-80 000 and you can open the door and exit if it goes into thermal runaway, or short circuits. At sea, especially with larger vessels, there is multimillion dollar CAPEX and a definitive resistance to leave the ship. On this topic, there are two things that Echandia typically suggest – if your application profile allows, go for a cell type with inherent safety qualities, so that external or internal fire suppression system aren’t even needed. Many discussions centered around benefits and disadvantages of air-cooled versus water-cooled systems. Our view is simple: Water-cooling tend to add complexity to the system and complexity adds risk of failure. If your cell is resistant to excessive heat (or cold) and air-cooling proves to be sufficient, there is a lot of benefits of choosing to do so.

Supply chains and a challenging macro environment

An obvious theme, at least as a reoccurring question in seminars, was the current situation with supply chain disturbances and price increases. At the same time we see a surge in activity, possibly, in part due to pent up demand after the pandemic, but also due to the industry activity being very high at the moment. At Echandia we have been able to keep delivery times throughout the pandemic and in the aftermath of it. We are handling the added pressure and complications going on with quite limited consequences.

From the seminars

Apart from the exhibition floor, there were three days of seminars and speeches from all parts of the industry.

From Echandia, our Deputy Managing Director Mr. Fredrik Hellstrom spoke about design criteria for how to dimension a maritime battery system, with the purpose to end up with a cost-efficient system over the span of the lifetime. Mr. Hellstrom outlined evaluation matrix as a way to assess what battery types can be the best fit given the application and design criteria.

If you’re interested in getting your hands on Fredrik’s slide deck, send an email to me by clicking this link.

We were also invited as one of the major battery systems suppliers to present at the Maritime Battery Forum event – ‘What Battery for Your Ship’.

At this event, our Head of Sales, Mr. Johan Larsson presented the key benefits of Echandia LTO systems. If you want to get your hands on this presentation, send an email to me by clicking this link. 

Conclusion

So, to conclude. All in all, a great event. The industry is growing with intensity. Can’t wait to see we’re we are at this time next year. Thank’s to everyone who made these days worthwhile, and to all of you who came by Echandia’s booth and discussed with our team, and to all of you who listened to our presentations at the conference.

See you next year.