Two great days at the online WATTS UP conference
The Maritime Battery Forum’s annual spring conference was carried out online on the 10-11th of March 2021. More than a 100 attendees were gathered during the two-day conference. The program including livestreamed and pre-recorded presentation and Q&A, as well as coffee breaks to establish new connections or reconnect with older ones.
The conference was opened by Paul-Christian Rieber, CEO at G.C. Rieber and President at the Norwegian Shipoweners’ Association. He emphasized the importance of the development and experience gained so far, to improve and find good and safe solutions moving forward. He also shared is view on how he believes that batteries will play an important part (one way or the other) for the energy systems on board ships in the years to come.
We were lucky to have Anders Valland at SINTEF Ocean returning “on stage” at WATTS UP. He talked about future energy systems for maritime, and reminded us about key challenges and the importance of seeing the and energy system as a whole.
The managing director of the forum gave an update on the status on the battery powered fleet based on the most recent MBF ship register update. Most of the ship register is available on the Alternative Fuels Insight platform. Click here to learn more about the ship register and how to get access.
The program was divided into two days, and the audience was charged on the following topics:
Session I: Battery technology and production, what are the opportunities for maritime?
Session II: Are batteries part of the zero emission solutions?
Session III: Charging the battery powered fleet, what are the possibilities offshore?
Session IV: User perspective and battery safety, how do we ensure safe operations on board?
Session V: User experience, are the batteries operating as expected
Session VI: What are the possibilities for reuse and recycling of Li-ion batteries?
Despite the pandemic, we believe the conference went well - and based on the feedback received the attendees were satisfied. It was difficult to feel the energy generated by the audience like we usually do from the stage, but based on the steady number of viewers following the livestreams we are certain it was electric!
Thank you to all the participants, we look forward to (hopefully) meeting you next year!
Based on the feedback most of us agree that we hope the situation enables for a conference were we meet in person, including ship visit and conference dinner similar to previous years.
The slides from the conference were shared with the participants after the conference. MBF members may find the slides on the member platform.
Questions?
Let us know if you have any comments or questions.