Page 54: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Sep/Oct 2019)

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TECH FILES Subsea Batteries

Electric Subsea

Operations

Source: Teledyne Marine

By Leon Adams - VP Sales, Southwest Electronic Energy s the offshore oil and gas properly designed and engineered bat- bursts of power, such as controlling a re- industry recovers from teries can safely be used subsea. motely operated vehicle’s manipulators, the downturn, business Traditional lead acid batteries are or longer low-draw demands for power-

A has focused on operating heavy and bulky. Lithium-on batteries, ing sensors.

more ef? ciently. The transition from such as Southwest Electronic Energy’s When subsea batteries are deployed, hydraulic power to electric power is a line of (SWE) SeaSafe batteries, deliver monitoring their performance is critical part of that equation. up to a six-fold lifetime improvement to ensuring that the batteries are operat-

Subsea batteries can safely power sub- over lead acid batteries at 25% of the ing dependably and sustainability. With sea operations requirements and save op- size and weight. SWE SeaSafe II and SeaSafe Direct, erators cost ef? ciency through extended SWE SeaSafe batteries powered by condition-based monitoring is built-in battery life and smart status reporting large lithium-ion polymer cells are en- with the user-friendly Battery Manage- resulting in longer and more reliable mis- gineered into modules to provide 30 ment System (BMS), patented by SWE. sion times. Numerous lithium-ion appli- volts at 28 amp hours with other op- The BMS automatically manages and cations are emerging, such as driving hy- tions available. The battery modules are tracks the safety, reliability, charge and draulic pumps and powering autonomous pressure tolerant and able to operate in discharge of the batteries and reports underwater vehicle (AUV) operations. water depths to 6,000 meters. Multiple technical information at the user’s de-

Batteries may not seem like a natural SeaSafe battery modules can be linked mand. These safe and smart batteries are choice for subsea operations, however, together to meet the voltage and power self-functioning. The reporting software lithium-ion batteries have revolution- needs of various applications. These excels over other systems as it provides ized stored power technology. As such, applications may require periodic high data on each and every battery module, 54 OFFSHORE ENGINEER OEDIGITAL.COM