The GREEN cell shipping concept is a new concept for powering merchant shipping vessels using containerized power units and a global logistics chain to manage these containers. GREEN cell stands for Global Renewable Electrical Energy Network cell. The concept resulted from a thought experiment process involving engineers working for the ABB Group that took place on March 13, 2009 in Oslo, Norway. The concept was subsequently introduced in an ABB magazine, and remains under development, as part of an open innovation process.
A thought experiment considers some hypothesis, theory, or principle for the purpose of thinking through its consequences. Given the structure of the experiment, it may not be possible to perform it, and even if it could be performed, there need not be an intention to perform it.
ABB is a Swiss-Swedish multinational corporation headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, operating mainly in robotics, power, heavy electrical equipment and automation technology areas. It is ranked 341st in the Fortune Global 500 list of 2018 and has been a global Fortune 500 company for 24 years.
Open innovation is a term used to promote an information age mindset toward innovation that runs counter to the secrecy and silo mentality of traditional corporate research labs. The benefits and driving forces behind increased openness have been noted and discussed as far back as the 1960s, especially as it pertains to interfirm cooperation in R&D. Use of the term 'open innovation' in reference to the increasing embrace of external cooperation in a complex world has been promoted in particular by Henry Chesbrough, adjunct professor and faculty director of the Center for Open Innovation of the Haas School of Business at the University of California,.
The propulsion of merchant ships is responsible for approximately 4% of global carbon-dioxide emissions. [1] The industry itself estimated its carbon footprint at 3.3% in 2007. [2] The industry responded officially as early as 2003 by calling for measures to limit or reduce the emissions from international shipping. [3] In order to envision solutions to this challenge, a team of engineers and consultants associated with ABB set up a thought experiment that would pose the question: "How could you power the commercial fleet without fossil fuels?" The core team consisted of three electrical engineers: Jaakko Aho, Jukka Varis and Klaus Vänska, all of Finland. This group laid down a core set of design principles around fossil-free marine propulsion, and described a hypothetical system that was later called the GREEN Cell shipping concept.
The GREEN Cell is at the core of the shipping concept. Each GREEN cell is envisaged as a container-sized source of electricity, based on inherent chemical energy (battery), in addition to solar energy and wind energy. Each cell provides electricity to the ship's network. The electrical power potential of each GREEN cell depends on the sum of the power in the battery, the size of solar panel area obtained, the efficiency of the solar panel and the efficiency of the wind power system.
Solar energy is radiant light and heat from the Sun that is harnessed using a range of ever-evolving technologies such as solar heating, photovoltaics, solar thermal energy, solar architecture, molten salt power plants and artificial photosynthesis.
Initial designs for a GREEN cell proposed that each GREEN Cell opens two doors length-wise, thus covering neighboring containers as well. The inside of the doors, and much of the exposed surface of the container are mounted with solar panels. Thus, a typical container ship could cover its entire surface with solar energy panels. One GREEN Cell produces as much as 1,000 sq ft (93 m2) of solar panel surface area. This equates to roughly 12 kW. 100 such containers could thus conceivably produce 1.2 MW. Alternate calculations show that such a system would retrieve 500 Watts per m2. Multiplied by the approximately 20,000 m2 of surface area on a large container ship like Emma Maersk would give 10 MW of solar energy. [4]
An extendable vertical-axis windmill emerges from one side of the container. A vertical-axis windmill is preferred as it introduces less resistance to the forward motion of the ship and disturbs ship stability less than horizontal-axis windmills.
A windmill is a mill that converts the energy of wind into rotational energy by means of vanes called sails or blades. Centuries ago, windmills usually were used to mill grain (gristmills), pump water (windpumps), or both. There are windmills that convert the rotational energy directly into heat. The majority of modern windmills take the form of wind turbines used to generate electricity, or windpumps used to pump water, either for land drainage or to extract groundwater. Windmills first appeared in Persia in the 9th century AD, and were later independently invented in Europe.
The battery of the GREEN cell takes up the remainder of the space in the container. Designers describe the potential battery as either an optimised lithium-ion battery, [5] or a sodium-sulfur one. [6]
Like a ship that takes refrigerated containers, a GREEN Cell-equipped ship would have an electrical connection to a number of containers. In this case, instead of feeding electricity to the refrigerated units, the ship would pull power from the containers. The GREEN Cell ship carries as many as several hundred GREEN Cells, adding weight to the ship and subtracting from available cargo space. Conversely, the GREEN Cell ship forgoes a typical diesel engine (weighing roughly 75 tons), a frequency converter (weighing roughly 25 tons) and petroleum fuel tanks (as much as 3000 tons).
A network of floating power stations placed along major trade routes either recharge a ship’s GREEN Cells, or simply switch them out (like a traditional container port). These create electricity from green sources like wave power generators, wind turbines, a flywheel-driving water density column, solar panels and current-driven turbines.
Container terminals carry a large supply of ready-to-go GREEN Cells. These switch out GREEN Cells on ships just like a container port unloads and reloads a container ship. Thus the GREEN Cell system serves both deepsea merchant marine traffic and coastal cabotage.
Electricity generation is the process of generating electric power from sources of primary energy. For electric utilities in the electric power industry, it is the first stage in the delivery of electricity to end users, the other stages being transmission, distribution, energy storage and recovery, using the pumped-storage method.
A fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that converts the chemical energy of a fuel and an oxidizing agent into electricity through a pair of redox reactions. Fuel cells are different from most batteries in requiring a continuous source of fuel and oxygen to sustain the chemical reaction, whereas in a battery the chemical energy usually comes from metals and their ions or oxides that are commonly already present in the battery, except in flow batteries. Fuel cells can produce electricity continuously for as long as fuel and oxygen are supplied.
While a significant majority of water vessels are powered by diesel engines, with sail power and gasoline engines also popular, boats powered by electricity have been used for over 120 years. Electric boats were very popular from the 1880s until the 1920s, when the internal combustion engine took dominance. Since the energy crises of the 1970s, interest in this quiet and potentially renewable marine energy source has been increasing steadily again, especially as solar cells became available, for the first time making possible motorboats with an infinite range like sailboats. The first practical solar boat was probably constructed in 1975 in England. The first electric sailboat which made a round-the-world tour, including the through the Panama Canal, with only green technologies is EcoSailingProject.
An electric vehicle, also called an EV, uses one or more electric motors or traction motors for propulsion. An electric vehicle may be powered through a collector system by electricity from off-vehicle sources, or may be self-contained with a battery, solar panels or an electric generator to convert fuel to electricity. EVs include, but are not limited to, road and rail vehicles, surface and underwater vessels, electric aircraft and electric spacecraft.
Energy development is the field of activities focused on obtaining sources of energy from natural resources. These activities include production of conventional, alternative and renewable sources of energy, and for the recovery and reuse of energy that would otherwise be wasted. Energy conservation and efficiency measures reduce the demand for energy development, and can have benefits to society with improvements to environmental issues.
Electric power systems consist of generation plants of different energy sources, transmission networks, and distribution lines. Each of these components can have environmental impacts at multiple stages of their development and use including in their construction, during the generation of electricity, and in their decommissioning and disposal. We can split these impacts into operational impacts and construction impacts. This page looks exclusively at the operational environmental impact of electricity generation. The page is organized by energy source and includes impacts such as water usage, emissions, local pollution, and wildlife displacement.
Photovoltaics (PV) is the conversion of light into electricity using semiconducting materials that exhibit the photovoltaic effect, a phenomenon studied in physics, photochemistry, and electrochemistry.
A zero-emissions vehicle, or ZEV, is a vehicle that emits no exhaust gas from the onboard source of power. Harmful pollutants to the health and the environment include particulates (soot), hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, ozone, lead, and various oxides of nitrogen. Although not considered emission pollutants by the original California Air Resources Board (CARB) or U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) definitions, the most recent common use of the term also includes volatile organic compounds, several air toxics, and global pollutants such as carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
The hydrogen economy is the use of hydrogen as a fuel, particularly for electricity production and hydrogen vehicles; and using hydrogen for long term energy storage and for long distance transport of low-carbon energy.
Sustainable energy is a principle in which human use of energy "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Sustainable energy strategies generally have two pillars: cleaner methods of producing energy and energy conservation.
A solar vehicle is an electric vehicle powered completely or significantly by direct solar energy. Usually, photovoltaic (PV) cells contained in solar panels convert the sun's energy directly into electric energy. The term "solar vehicle" usually implies that solar energy is used to power all or part of a vehicle's propulsion. Solar power may be also used to provide power for communications or controls or other auxiliary functions.
Photovoltaic solar panels absorb sunlight as a source of energy to generate electricity. A photovoltaic (PV) module is a packaged, connected assembly of typically 6x10 photovoltaic solar cells. Photovoltaic modules constitute the photovoltaic array of a photovoltaic system that generates and supplies solar electricity in commercial and residential applications.
Solar power is the conversion of energy from sunlight into electricity, either directly using photovoltaics (PV), indirectly using concentrated solar power, or a combination. Concentrated solar power systems use lenses or mirrors and tracking systems to focus a large area of sunlight into a small beam. Photovoltaic cells convert light into an electric current using the photovoltaic effect.
The 42' sailboat known as the XV/1 was intended to demonstrate Haveblue LLC's patented technology for the production, storage, and use of hydrogen on board a marine vessel. The anticipated range was to be a radius of ~300 nautical miles at 8 knots on a full tank.
A photovoltaic system, also PV system or solar power system, is a power system designed to supply usable solar power by means of photovoltaics. It consists of an arrangement of several components, including solar panels to absorb and convert sunlight into electricity, a solar inverter to change the electric current from DC to AC, as well as mounting, cabling, and other electrical accessories to set up a working system. It may also use a solar tracking system to improve the system's overall performance and include an integrated battery solution, as prices for storage devices are expected to decline. Strictly speaking, a solar array only encompasses the ensemble of solar panels, the visible part of the PV system, and does not include all the other hardware, often summarized as balance of system (BOS). Moreover, PV systems convert light directly into electricity and shouldn't be confused with other technologies, such as concentrated solar power or solar thermal, used for heating and cooling.
A solar lamp also known as solar light or solar lantern, is a lighting system composed of an LED lamp, solar panels, battery, charge controller and there may also be an inverter. The lamp operates on electricity from batteries, charged through the use of solar photovoltaic panel.
A Solar backpack is a backpack equipped with thin film solar cells and batteries. The solar panels convert sunlight into electricity, which is stored in the batteries and can be used to power portable electronic appliances like mobile phones and mp3 players.
Hybrid ferries combine multiple sources of power, resulting in reductions in fossil fuel consumption, carbon emissions and other pollutants.
A solar bus or solar-charged bus is a bus which is powered exclusively or mainly by solar energy. A solar-powered bus service is referred to as a solar bus service. The use of the term "solar bus" normally implies that solar energy is used not only for powering electric equipment on the bus, but also for the propulsion of the vehicle.