The GREEN cell shipping concept is a new concept for powering merchant ships using containerized power units and a global logistics chain to manage these containers. GREEN cell stands for Global Renewable Electrical Energy Network cell. ABB Group has been working on the concept of an ABB Group, which took place on March 13, 2009 in Oslo, Norway. The concept was extended in ABB magazine, and remains under development, as part of an open innovation process.
The propulsion of merchant shipping is responsible for approximately 4% of global carbon dioxide emissions. The industry itself estimated carbon footprint at 3.3% in 2007. The industry answers officially as early as 2003 by calling for measures to limit or reduce emissions from international shipping. In order to envision solutions to this challenge, a team of engineers and consultants with ABB set up a thought experiment that would ask the question: “How could you have a commercial fleet without fossil fuels?” Jaakko Aho, Jukka Varis and Klaus Vänska, all of Finland. This group has a core set of design principles around fossil-free marine propulsion, and has been described as a GREEN cell shipping concept.
The GREEN Cell is at the heart of the shipping concept. Each GREEN cell is considered as a container-sized source of electricity, based on the 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 of the two solar panels, the efficiency of the solar panel and the efficiency of the wind power system.
Initial designs for a GREEN cell proposed GREEN Cell opens two doors length-wise 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 of solar panel surface area. This equates to roughly 12 kW. Such containers could thus conceivably produce 1.2 MW. Alternate calculations show that such a system would retrieve 500 watts per m 2. Multiplied by the approximately 20,000 sq. Ft. Of surface area on a large container like Emma Maersk would give 10 MW of solar energy.
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 than horizontal-axis windmills.
The battery of the GREEN cell takes up the space of the container. Designers describe the potential battery as an optimized lithium-ion battery, or a sodium-sulfur one.
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 the cargo space. Conversely, the GREEN Cell ships for 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 GREEN Cells, or simply switch them out (like a traditional container port). These create electricity from green sources like power wave generators, wind turbines, flywheel-driving water-density columns, solar panels and current-driven turbines.
Container terminals carry a wide supply of ready-to-go GREEN Cells. These switch out GREEN Cells on ships unloads and reloads a container ship. Thus the GREEN Cell system serves both commercial and marine cabotage.