Global warming is causing a major ice retreat from the North Pole. From now on, this retreat allows almost permanent movement between East and West off the coast of the Russian Federation along the Northern Sea Route (NSR). For a long time, navigators have been trying to use this route which significantly reduced the distance between continents. The amount of freight that currently travels on the NSR will inevitably increase in the coming years. To reduce environmental risks, one possible option is not to supply ships with heavy fuel oil. The ships could then be electrically powered and navigate in stages from one port to another along the route to refuel for energy. This electrical energy can be produced on site from renewable energy sources. In this article, a first feasibility analysis is outlined, taking into account the tonnage constraints for navigating on a possible route for the NSR, the cost of energy production and the possible location of several ports of call. Under current economic conditions, the solution would not be profitable as it stands, but should become so at a later stage, which justifies starting to think about a future full electrification of navigation on the NSR, which will also contribute to the economic development of the Russian Federation northernmost regions.

Devices operating in complete energy autonomy are multiplying: small fixed signaling applications or sensors often operating in a network. To ensure operation for a substantial period, for applications with difficult physical access, a means of storing electrical energy must be included in the system. The battery remains the most deployed solution. Lead-acid batteries still have a significant share of this market due to the maturity of their technology. However, even by sizing all the system elements according to the needs and the available renewable energy, some failure occurs. The battery is the weak element. It can be quickly discharged when the renewable energy source is no longer present for a while. It can also be overloaded or subjected to high temperatures, which affects its longevity. This paper presents a suggested improvement for these systems, systematically adding extra devices to reduce excess charges and heat and allowing the battery use at lower charges. The interest of this strategy is presented by comparing the number of days of system failure and the consequences for battery aging. To demonstrate the interest of the proposed improvement track, a colored Petri net is deployed to model the battery degradation parameters evolution, in order to compare them.

Designed to store and discharge electrical energy, rechargeable batteries consist of elementary storage cell assemblies. Aging is affected by various aggravating factors, mainly temperature. There are many electric or electrochemical models which describe their operation. Most standard models do not consider the aging phenomena of batteries and their consequences, while batteries deteriorate when used or stored. Precisely, most battery models do not simulate the influence of cell aging on other cells. The model presented in this paper incorporates aging and the effects of mutual interactions between cells. The model can be established based on four measurement points on the cell characteristic curve and allows the simulation of a single cell’s or multiple coupled cells’ behavior. The model can then be easily implemented in simulation software like Matlab.

This paper presents various solutions for organizing an accumulator battery. It examines three different architectures: series-parallel, parallel-series and C3C architecture, which spread the cell output current flux to three other cells. Alternatively, to improve a several cell system reliability, it is possible to insert more cells than necessary and soliciting them less. Classical RAMS (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, Safety) solutions can be deployed by adding redundant cells or by tolerating some cell failures. With more cells than necessary, it is also possible to choose active cells by a selection algorithm and place the others at rest. Each variant is simulated for the three architectures in order to determine the impact on battery-operative dependability, that is to say the duration of how long the battery complies specifications. To justify that the conventional RAMS solutions are not deployed to date, this article examines the influence on operative dependability. If the conventional variants allow to extend the moment before the battery stops to be operational, using an algorithm with a suitable optimization criterion further extend the battery mission time.

This paper links the scientific fields of electrical energy storage with that of managerial performance. It first presents the evaluation method of the efficient framework for quality management (EFQM) model, based on the criteria set interested in which way the management of an organisation acts on the results. An example fulfilling the requirements for an EFQM assessment is also summarised: the search for a high-performance battery internal architecture in order to improve its lifespan. To date, several different architectures, combined with a specific management algorithm, allow to similarly extending the battery lifespan. The method presented here helps to identify which architecture has the best management performance. In addition, it identifies its strengths and main defect. Keywords: Battery, battery architecture, EFQM, performance, quality management.