10 April 2024
Following Boskalis’ earlier announcement to hybridize numerous existing vessels of their fleet, Bakker Sliedrecht successfully implemented the Energy Storage Systems (ESS), on board of the two Boskalis diving support vessels BOKA Atlantis and BOKA Da Vinci. The installation of the ESS reduce the vessels’ fuel consumption and associated carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions by an average of up to twenty percent. The systems also provides a power supply and energy storage facility while the vessels are docked and contribute to quieter and more efficient operations offshore.
Both vessels were converted in a short period of time at the Boskalis Service Center quay in Rotterdam. Bakker Sliedrecht’ scope of supply included a battery pack, a power converter system, transformer, switchboard panels, ESS control system with several functionalities such as spinning reserve, peak shaving, ramp rate control, state of charge management and battery management. Also, system design, engineering, production, physical and functional integration and commissioning were included.
With the current busy market for subsea vessels, minimizing downtime is key for vessel owners. “We managed to limit the out-of-service time of these vessels, from arrival of the vessels up to completed sea trials and class approval, to less than 2 months for the whole ESS implementation” says Andy Waterstreet, Project Director at Bakker Sliedrecht. “Careful offline preparation is than important, which included a detailed on-board survey on forehand and extensive in-house functional testing of the ESS at Bakker’s test facility.”
Further reduction of fuel consumption, emissions and running hours was achieved by optimizing the power plant configuration. “For DP-2 vessels performing very safety critical operations like these vessels, redundancy and safe operations are key in every design choice“ says Edwin de Koning, Account Manager at Bakker Sliedrecht. “This was achieved by early involvement of and close cooperation with DNV-GL, execution of extensive failure mode effect analysis and sea trials.
Although these vessels are originally not equipped with Bakker Sliedrecht’ provided diesel-electric power plant, both physical and functional integration went smoothly. Bakker Sliedrecht’s extensive experience in system integration that involves systems from different vendors and the autonomous, Bakker Sliedrecht designed ESS control system, highly contributed to this.
