Corvus conducts key battery safety test

The company – which claims to be the only marine battery supplier to have conducted the tests – deliberately bypassed all built-in safety systems and induced thermal runaway in a pack consisting of seven 6.5kW Corvus AT6500 lithium polymer battery models. Creating the conditions for thermal runaway involved ignoring feedback data from the battery management system, pre-conditioning battery cells and intentional misuse.

Testing, held over three weeks at the SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden in Borås, showed that thermal runaway was always confined to one module, and that external fire does not cause dangerous temperatures in the batteries. Representatives from ship owners, energy and propulsion system integrators, ship builders, class societies and maritime authorities were invited to view the final two days of testing.

Corvus said that the results will inform future industry practices involving the installation of large-scale battery systems on vessels and offshore rigs. “This testing highlights the success of our continued research and development work aimed at ensuring that we offer the safest energy storage systems in the industry today.” said Andrew Morden, president and CEO, Corvus.

Corvus Energy claims to make the only lithium-ion batteries to be type approved by Lloyd’s Register, DNV GL and the American Bureau of Shipping.