If you glance through the official website of the Cabinet Public Relations Office of the government of Japan, the first legend you see is ‘About Japan’, and the next one is ‘Technology.’ This gives the tint on the importance given by the country to technology and innovation. At present, the Land of Rising Sun is rapidly moving toward ‘Society 5.0,’ adding a fifth chapter to the four major stages of human development: hunter-gatherer, agrarian, industrial and information. The government believes that in this new ultra-smart society, all things will be connected through IoT technology, and all technologies will be integrated to improve the quality of life. However, the requirement for electricity will also increase exponentially to power all the new requirements.
Nevertheless, to realise this new epoch, the government is doing everything it can to encourage various players, including start-ups and ‘hidden gems’ among small- and medium-sized enterprises, to develop brand-new and innovative ideas and provide the world with solutions. At the same time, the government aims to generate about 38% of the country’s power generation in fiscal 2030 through renewable sources, which requires a boost of offshore wind power from the current 20MW to 10GW by fiscal 2030 and to 30-45GW by fiscal 2040.
Driven by this initiative is one such innovation to generate electricity by leveraging the windspeeds of the ocean surrounding Japan and transferring the energy to the mainland through ships. Sounds interesting, right?
Green innovation
Japanese firm PowerX, founded with a vision to change how the world consumes and transfers renewable energy, has announced its business to innovate power storage and transmission by developing a Power Transfer Vessel.
The vessel will carry electricity from offshore wind farms to shore and build a large-scale battery packing facility in Japan to produce EV fast-charging, grid, and marine batteries.
At present, most of the world’s energy is transported by ships in the form of fuel such as oil, gas, and coal. As per the 2019 report of the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, about 85% of Japan’s power is generated by burning carbon-based fuels imported by ships. However, as the world shifts away from fossil fuels, the energy ship of the future will carry electricity from clean and renewable sources, replacing the fuel-carrying carbon ships of today.
Solution from PowerX
As deep coastal waters surround Japan, it limits the potential range for setting up offshore wind farms. The further away from shore, the stronger the wind blows. Therefore, the solution from PowerX can potentially lift the restriction on power generation location, which will allow greater flexibility for offshore wind farm locations, especially for an island country like Japan. Furthermore, by driving innovation in the way the world stores and transports energy, the company aims to enable an unprecedented energy transmission between any two ports on the planet and thus accelerates the adoption of renewable energy.
The company that aspires to drive innovation with the power of technology and accelerate the global adoption of renewable energy is steered by Masahiro Ito, founder of Yappa software company, which was later sold to ZOZO as the Co-founder, Representative Director and CEO of PowerX.
Ito is supported by Paolo Cerruti, Co-founder and COO of Northvolt, Caesar Sengupta, ex-VP and General Manager at Google, and Mark Tercek, former CEO at The Nature Conservancy and former Partner at Goldman Sachs, as Non-executive Directors of PowerX.
These four think tanks, along with their team, will design and build an automated Power Transfer Vessel with a massive battery payload integrated with the ship’s controls to transport offshore wind power to shore.
Why transfer power by ships?
It is because an undersea power cable typically requires expensive construction that comes with substantial environmental impacts. Comparatively, the Power Transfer Vessel stands out as it is resilient to natural disasters, requires less time and cost for development, leaves minimal impact on the environment, and can significantly expand the potential of offshore wind power.
The first model of the Power ARK series - Power ARK 100 is a 100TEU trimaran (a fast-sailing boat with three parallel hulls) specially designed to transfer renewable energy in Japan’s coastal waters. Upon its completion in 2025, Power ARK 100 will carry 100 grid batteries, hence 200MWh of power (equivalent to the total electricity consumption by 22,000 Japanese households in a day. According to current estimates, the daily power consumption per household in Japan is about 10kWh.
The vessel can travel up to 300km when running only on electricity and will unlock long-distance, intercontinental clean power transmission when it is powered by both electricity and sustainable biodiesel fuels. So distance does not matter.
Battery assembly facility
PowerX also plans to build a giga-scale battery assembly facility in Japan to mass-produce batteries for the Power Transfer Vessel to realise its vision. With an acceleration toward decarbonisation across the globe, the demand for large energy storage is soaring. Off-the-shelf battery cells will be packaged based on the use case, including EV fast-charging, grid, and marine batteries. According to the company, its annual production capacity will achieve 1GWh by 2024 and eventually reach 5GWh by 2028. In addition, the productions lines will be automated to mass-produce to contain cost eventually.
In the end, it appears that generating wind energy far away from the shore and transferring green electricity through eco-friendly ships is an innovation to the power of 'X.'