Researcher : Pramod Ghimire

Competitive market and stricter regulations are driving marine industry towards cleaner, greener, safer and energy efficient technologies. Ship hybrid power plant is promising technology towards energy efficient and low emission ambition. Use of energy storage devices (ESDs; battery bank, super capacitors) along with classical (diesel and gas engines) or emerging energy sources (fuel cells) characterise ship hybrid power plant. ESDs in ship hybrid power plant has different purposes including spinning reserve, peak shaving, enhanced dynamic performance, enhanced ride through, strategic loading and zero emission operation.

This project aims to develop a dynamic system simulator of ship hybrid power plant that can be used to simulate different realistic scenarios. This simulator approach of hybrid power plant study tries to fill the knowledge gap regarding its behaviour, reliability, performance, operational capability and stability. Interrelation between the components cannot always be predicted using component level simulation. Moreover, system level analysis of normal to extreme failure in one or more components is of major interest in this project. Prediction of failures in both the component and system level along with their mitigation will be the major objective.

Ship simulator has been essential at every stage of ship’s life cycle.  Co-simulation is an emerging technology that reduces the time to market for the simulators. Different models and sub-systems can be co-simulated to make a system simulator. Co-simulating K-Sim Engine along with open simulator model/subsystem opens mutual opportunity for both the commercial simulator and academic/research institutes.

The major objective of this project is to improve the performance, operational capability and reliability of ship hybrid power plants through development of new methods, tools and simulation cases incorporating failure conditions. Different technological concepts comprising of optimal operation of ESDs, AC and DC power grid, high level control, power management, monitoring and human in loop set-ups will be studied. The objectives can be listed as

• Modelling of ship hybrid power plants including physical components and control systems.
• Modelling, analysing and predicting relevant failures along with mitigation methodologies.
• Study and analysis of co-simulation platform architectures.

Project Partners:

Kongsberg Digital AS

Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)

Project Duration:

September 2018 - August 2021