Japan’s Imabari Shipbuilding invested in a Japanese startup company PowerX, in order to develop an automated power transfer vessel.
Last summer, PowerX revealed its designs for an automated trimaran that would shuttle power between offshore generation sites and the power grid. This aims to increase the supply and utilization of renewable energy, and enhance the range of location for wind farms going further offshore as well addressing the limitations of cabling.
The company is planning to build its prototype by the end of 2025.
Now, Imabari entered into a capital and business alliance with PowerX to jointly develop the prototype of the vessel. In fact, Imabari is investing about $9 million into the company.
Under the collaboration, PowerX will develop and manufacture the battery storage system and other battery-related systems to be installed on the prototype ship. Imabari Shipbuilding will be responsible for the construction of the vessel.
The prototype will be a smaller 220 MWh capacity vessel but even at that size, PowerX claims that it would transport enough electricity for 209,000 Japanese households in just one trip.
The design aims for a vessel that would be 330-feet long with a beam of around 72 feet and 16-foot drafts. The Power Ark 100 would be 2,2200 dwt and able to operate at 7 knots and a maximum speed of 14 knots.
The trimaran will also have autonomous navigation software and sensing equipment, along with collision avoidance systems to support autonomous operations.
To achieve the goal of building such a vessel, PowerX is also working to build a large-scale battery packing facility in Japan.
The factory would develop and produce EV fast-charging, grid, and marine batteries, with the hope to have an initial production capacity of 1GW by 2024 and will ramp up to 5GW by 2028.
