Electric Power Integration Schemes of the Hybrid Fuel Cells and Batteries-Fed Marine Vessels—An Overview

Abstract

Transportation electrification is undergoing a significant transitioning towards the utilization of efficient and reliable energy sources and smart integration schemes, where this transitioning is continuously facing ever-tightening challenges in order to comply with the increased environmental regulations. Among the different means of transportation, the global maritime transport is responsible for 2-3% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and it is predicted to increase to 17% by 2050 if no changes are adapted. Hence, the international maritime organization (IMO) has targeted to reach a 50% reduction in GHG emissions by 2050 compared to 2008. Hence, alternative energy sources shall be utilized in order to meet these strict GHG emissions reduction targets, where batteries and hydrogen-fed fuel cells can play a vital role in such aspect. Since the output of these two energy sources is unregulated DC voltage, their connection to the whole ship power system can be accomplished in several ways, where each way has its features, in addition to utilizing different power conditioning stages (PCSs), and these features are not well clarified and compared in the literature. Hence, this paper presents an overview of the possible integration schemes that can be utilized in fuel cells and batteries-fed vessels, which is supported with a comparative assessment. This is also presented along with highlighting the state-of-the-art PCSs that are available in the market and can be utilized in these integration schemes within marine vessels. Such overview and comparative assessment are seen to be of significant importance and added value for researchers and developers in both the academic and industrial sides in order to accelerate the adoption of fuel cells in marine systems for zero emission shipping.

Multiport Hybrid Converter for Electrified Transportation Systems

“…These energy sources are characterized by their dc output voltage, and as a consequence, dc integration schemes are seen to be attractive due to their simplicity and increased efficiency, since a reduced number of power conditioning stages (PCSs) is needed [6]. In addition to that, medium-voltage dc (MVDC) is seen to be efficient and promising in higher power transportation systems despite the main protection challenge in the MVDC integration schemes compared to the ac counterparts.…”

Hierarchical robust shipboard hybrid energy storage sizing with three‐layer power allocation

“…In Ref. [9], FC has been viewed as one of the key technologies for the future green ships. However, different from the land-based transportation, such as electric vehicles or railway, ships suffer from very uncertain marine environment, resulting in large variations on propulsion power and causing voltage sags in direct current (DC) bus [10,11], which deviates the operating pattern of FC since FC tends to keep a constant power output.…”

Dual Use of Liquid Hydrogen in a Next-Generation PEMFC-Powered Regional Aircraft With Superconducting Propulsion

“…Molar mass of air, 28 H YDROGEN-POWERED aviation has received a renewed interest over the last few years due to its attractive promises of decarbonizing air transport [2]. There is also a push to utilize hydrogen as a sustainable fuel in other sectors as well, including hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) [3], hydrogen trains (hyrail) [4], hybrid fuels cells in marine vessels [5], to name a few.…”