Naval Energy Storage System Safety and Assessment N00014-23-S-C003

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is examining the shipboard integration and safety associated with large scale energy storage, consisting of batteries or flywheels in megawatt (MW) and up to MW-hour (MWh) scales, with interfaces up to 1000V. These systems will be embedded into the platform and operated across the host platform's lifecycle. High profile energy storage system casualties in both terrestrial and commercial maritime applications provide some insights into the potential types of failures, the magnitudes and scenarios that may be encountered. However, none of these applications are as deeply embedded with as aggressive concepts of operation (high rate discharge and charge, challenging thermal conditions) and high power application (high power to energy ratio). This special notice pursues to generate a better understanding of failures, risk assessment and mitigation approaches through the synergistic use of modeling, prototyping and experimentation associated with large scale lithium-ion batteries and flywheel energy storage systems.