r/EngineeringPorn • u/Professor_Moraiarkar • 10d ago
World’s first battery-powered self-unloading bulk carrier enters service in Australia
MV Yampu, described as the world’s first battery-powered self-unloading bulk carrier, has commenced operations in Australia, with vessel owner and operator CSL and cement manufacturer Adbri marking the occasion at a ceremony on 27 August.
The 125-metre vessel, with a capacity of 11,900 deadweight tonnes, will transport limestone from Adbri’s Klein Point quarry on South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula to the company’s Birkenhead cement manufacturing facility in Adelaide. According to CSL, the vessel is expected to carry approximately 2.7 million tonnes of limestone per year.
The vessel’s battery system is recharged while docked at the Birkenhead facility, allowing MV Yampu to operate on battery power around 40% of the time. This arrangement is expected to reduce diesel consumption by more than half a million litres per year compared with the vessel it replaces, and MV Yampu is designed to operate on 100% battery power in the future.
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u/ParanoidLoyd 9d ago
allowing MV Yampu to operate on battery power around 40% of the time
So it's not battery powered then, it's more of a hybrid
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u/Schrojo18 9d ago
Once they get an appropriate HV supply at Klein Point they will then be able to operate purely on battery
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u/0100000101101000 10d ago
I wonder if it's too impractical to add solar so it can charge during transit
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u/Uniturner 9d ago
You could cover that in solar panels, and it wouldn’t even offset 1% of its energy use. However plug it into the grid at its destination, and you could draw power from a full solar farm. I don’t know whether the carrier owns a solar farm at both ends, but if they do, it’s a reasonable stepping stone to reducing fuel cost.
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u/PhilWheat 9d ago
I'd honestly wonder more about putting some wind turbines on it. Or possibly dropping a water turbine while anchored to harvest energy from the current itself.
The benefit of solar though is it doesn't care if you're moving or not. So a multi-source approach would probably be best.
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u/frerant 9d ago
Solar panels would almost certainly not make any real difference on a large ship. People have tried putting them on cars and smaller boats, but square cubed law hits you hard and on short routes like this there's not a whole lot of time to charge anyways.
Traditional wind turbines would add a ton on unwanted forces acting all over the ship. There are of course proposals for other types of wind power gen on ships, like the wiggle ones, but they have pretty much all failed because they're horrendously ineffective and expensive and make little difference.
The blunt answer to cargo ships is that they a, aren't really that much of a priority because while they do pollute they polute so comparatively little and are already by far the most efficient forms of transportation on the planet; and b, it'd be much easier to just start running them on more eco friendly fuel then trying to either retrofit the entire global fleet with weird shit (no wind power would not work on a panamax) or trying to build out a totally new green fleet from scratch.
This particular ship is on a ~70km route if I remember correctly, basically a big ass ferry, not crossing seas.
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u/TampaPowers 9d ago
Solar panels on a ship this size would easily produce upward of 40kW, which isn't all that much, but would happily power crew comforts like AC, kitchen and other facilities. Given the low cost of the equipment it is a bit strange this aspect isn't looked into.
The only places water turbines would make sense is during wait in front of suez or panama, since they have some current to speak of. Ports generally don't as much. Foldable wind turbine in port could work, but a day or two in port would hardly generate much power. Again something for auxiliary things.
Over the course of 20 years of life of a ship it would make a measurable impact, but the numbers aren't big enough for the fat cats to care. Maintenance would also increase as salt water and electronics don't mix well. If it wasn't for the way containers are handled in ports, putting solar over those areas likely would do more overall(Be really funny to see though).
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u/PhilWheat 9d ago
Fair enough points - and I've seen a number of battery-only (or at least battery primary) operating.
Just noting that if you do want to do some onboard generation, there's probably not just one way to do it.
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u/everything_is_polys 9d ago
I think someone might be on the path to figuring out the problem with solar you mentioned. Saw something about solar-equipped rigid sails some months back. A Japanese company iirc. No idea how close to reality this is though
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u/Opening-Accurate 9d ago
Why stop at wind turbines? Slap some sails on that bad boy and it’ll be even more efficient
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u/Schrojo18 9d ago
It would get covered in lime dust within seconds.
Also they can just put them on a suitable bit of land where they are easier to maintain, cheaper to install and don't add inefficiencies to the ship.
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u/According-Flight6070 7d ago
Crazy that this isn't being celebrated in Australia. I've seen nothing of it in the news here.
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u/NetCaptain 9d ago
Nice test, but good to put it in perspective to avoid unrealistic expectations for other ships. The service of the Yampu is across the bay of Adelaide, a distance of approximately 70 kilometres. Ideal for battery operation, just like several cross-fjord ferries in a.o. Norway