
Could flow batteries provide a viable and cost effective solution for reducing emissions in shipping?
Findings from a 6 month feasibility study have demonstrated that flow batteries, could offer a more cost effective and flexible solution to reducing ships emissions than conventional solid batteries.

Ships need ports
As a maritime nation, we depend on our port infrastructure. Ports are major users of energy, for operating dockside handling facilities, and powering the port’s vessels, such as pilot craft and tugs. In addition, ships usually use their own engines when moored to power their onboard facilities, which on a cruise liner are very extensive. […]

Making shipping sustainable and safe (part 2)
Our work to make ships clean and green continues! We are pleased to be starting work on another project with Marine South East to work towards zero emissions in the marine environment. In the FLO-MAR project, we will investigate the design and operation of vessel types most suitable for flow batteries. Alongside Swanbarton and Marine […]

Making shipping sustainable and safe
Swanbarton and Marine South East are developing new technology to deliver clean, sustainable energy to the ships of the future. The Department for Transport (DfT) ‘Future of Mobility Grand Challenge’, aims to make the UK a world leader in moving people, goods and services safely, cleanly and sustainably. Swanbarton and Marine South East (MSE) are […]

The benefits of minute-by-minute local energy trading
In our recent post The Minuteman of the Half-Hour, we explained some of the benefits of local energy trading based on one minute settlement periods. The whitepaper below, produced for Swanbarton’s LEMDEx local energy market project, explores the issue in a little more depth. A Local Energy Market (LEM) is an intuitively simple idea. A […]

Software developer
Swanbarton is looking for a software developer to join its expanding team. The job Work on interesting product research and development projects in Smart Energy. Our main projects for 2019-20 will be about: Enabling people in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia to trade energy from home to home, in real time Enabling UK businesses to […]

LEMDEx Key Findings
A Whitepaper Swanbarton led the LEMDEx project from January to June 2019. This Whitepaper presents distilled learnings from the project. LEMDEx (Local Energy Markets in Devon and Exeter) was funded by Innovate UK under the Prospering from the Energy Revolution Programme, within the Smart Local Energy Systems stream. The project was a 6-month feasibility study […]

The rise of stupid electricity
21st century power systems engineers may enjoy reflecting on the comical but expensive mistakes of the telecommunications industry in the 20thcentury. Digital technologies capable of controlling telephony services became available from the 1960s. At first the telecoms operators used the technology to replicate, more reliably and more economically, the exact same services that they’d formerly […]

The Minuteman of the half hour
The Concord Minuteman – “Minutemen were civilian colonists during the American Revolutionary War. They were known for being ready at a minute’s notice, hence the name. They provided a highly mobile, rapidly deployed force that allowed the colonies to respond immediately to war threats.” The burgeoning popularity of electric vehicles and the increase in renewable […]

Lighting the dark waters of local energy
As long ago as 2016 we started warning of the information security risks in community energy schemes. In the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, we said that: There are many community energy schemes. Their number and variety are increasing briskly. They bring new kinds of information into existence and they handle existing kinds […]