Photon Marine receives funding for ‘ChargeBarge’ floating storage project
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Energy Storage Engine in Upstate New York has selected Photon Marine as the recipient of the Engine’s inaugural $1 million MegaBoost grant award.
For the Engine itself, the award represents a major expansion of its work in development of energy storage technologies, officials say. The grant aims to help Photon Marine launch a commercial-scale proof of concept for its marine electrification and distributed energy storage strategy in New York State.
Specifically, the Portland, Oregon-based firm’s project will create an “integrated marine electrification ecosystem,” connecting an electric workboat, new marine-safe fast charging infrastructure, and a floating energy storage and charging platform, dubbed the ‘ChargeBarge.’
“Commercial marine electrification will only scale when operators can see that the technology works in the conditions they face every day,” says Marcelino J. Alvarez, co-founder and CEO of Photon Marine. “This project gives us the opportunity to demonstrate an entire electrification ecosystem, from the propulsion system to the charger to mobile energy storage, while building on the real-world operating experience we have developed with NYPA.”
As “one of America’s most iconic waterways,” the Erie Canal provides a perfect testing bed for the technology, Alvarez adds. Further, he says the company is working to develop a model replicable far beyond the canal, with aims to use this technology in sailing races, Caribbean fishing boats, and potential dual-use applications.
Building the ChargeBarge
The lynchpin component of Photon Marine’s strategy, taking the project beyond simple vessel electrification and into distributed energy storage, is the ChargeBarge. The 32-foot floating platform will carry both battery storage cells and high-power charging equipment, the Oregonian firm says, allowing it to move wherever energy need is the highest.
The company designed the barge to support vessel to vessel charging, and gave the platform remote fleet operation and emergency backup power capabilities.
“This is an important moment for the NSF Energy Storage Engine because MegaBoost takes our commercialization model to an entirely different level,” says Dr. Meera Sampath, Ph.D., CEO of the NSF Energy Storage Engine in Upstate New York. “It’s about market-making: moving beyond supporting individual technologies and helping companies demonstrate complete systems, with customers, infrastructure and a path to commercial scale.
“Photon Marine is exactly the kind of ambitious, customer-driven project we want to bring to Upstate New York as we build the market for new energy storage technologies here.”
Ultimately, MegaBoost exists to close a gap between technological advancements and scalable products. Fernando Gómez-Baquero, the Engine’s director of translation, says that Photon Marine brings together several disparate pieces — the vessel, propulsion system, energy storage, and charging infrastructure — that often get addressed separately.
Rethinking marine electrification
Photon Marine’s project purposefully gets away from the normal model of commercial and government workboats in the U.S., Engine officials say. Under the current model, electrification has lagged for marine vessels because not only do operators need high-power charging systems, but those systems often exist in locations not designed for electric marine vessels.
Combining electrified propulsion with both fixed and mobile charging infrastructure changes all that, Photon Marine says.
With assistance from the Engine, the wider ChargeBarge project will generate a “comprehensive operational dataset,” covering not only vessel performance, but battery charge utilization, duty cycle requirements, inter-vessel energy transfer, and potential grid-scale applications.
“We have been very intentional about building an NSF Engine that does more than fund research,” Dr. Sampath says. “Our goal is to create the conditions in which technologies are developed, tested, manufactured and bought here. MegaBoost gives us another powerful tool to make that happen and to reinforce Upstate New York’s position as America’s battery and energy storage tech capital.”
