Floating battery offers clean energy at port

The Port of Amsterdam and Skoon Energy, which operates a platform that enables mobile battery sharing, launched the silent battery, which is placed on a barge and powered by local, renewable energy, with the expectation that it will help alleviate demand on and balance the electricity grid. Because it is placed on a barge, the battery can deliver electricity anyplace close to water.

Koen Overtoom, Port of Amsterdam CEO, said: “We have started this project with Skoon, as it is in line with our ambition of creating partnerships that will help us become a zero-emission Port.”

The floating battery will be on the barge for six months. It will support river cruise vessels at the port two weeks per month and be utilised by various city projects the rest of the time.

The battery will be charged from renewable energy sources, such as Windpark Ruigoord, solar panels from rooftops in the port area and energy from biomass by waste-to-energy company AEB. Zoev City will transport the battery through the canals, with its full-electric vessels.

Skoon is backed by clean energy conglomerate Koolen Industries, which also owns Super B, the company supplying lithium batteries to the barges, and Smart Grid, which supplies the battery system.