An integrated approach to shipboard electric power systems

A powerful turquoise ocean wave curling and crashing with white sea foam and bubbles.

MASI is Western Canada’s centre of excellence in marine, aerospace, subsea and naval systems, anchored at the University of British Columbia. MASI is establishing Canada’s first Pacific–Arctic hub for world‑leading research, innovation and training that supports national sovereignty, security and sustainable blue‑economy growth.

As vessels transition from fossil fuel-driven mechanical propulsion to integrated electric and hybrid-electric systems, the maritime industry faces both transformative opportunities and complex challenges. These next-generation systems promise significant gains in efficiency, resilience and environmental performance – reducing emissions and noise while enhancing response times and asset utilization. However, the shift also introduces subsystem interactions and demands new approaches to modelling, simulation, control and data analytics.

Dr. Christine Chen was the Principal Investigator of a multi-year NSERC grant to develop advanced tools for modelling, optimizing and evaluating the performance of shipboard power systems to improve both their efficiency during normal operation and resilience in emergencies. She and her team developed advanced tools for system-level simulations, adaptive power and energy management, and studying interdependencies across power, communications and human interfaces.

Dr. Chen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and an Associate Director of UBC’s Clean Energy Research Centre. We talked with her about how her research supports the goals of the Energy and Propulsion Systems group in MASI.

What are some areas of focus for MASI’s Energy and Propulsion Systems group?

Our overarching goal is to enable decarbonization across the marine and aerospace sectors.

Within the marine sector, for example, this often means electrifying propulsion systems and integrating large-scale battery storage.

Here, a major challenge is that we do not necessarily have the models and tools to simulate and de-risk the design and operation of these systems before they are deployed. We also don’t yet have the robust tools needed to optimize their operation or recover them in the event of an emergency if that is needed.

How does this work apply to shipboard electric power systems?

I was Principal Investigator of a five-year NSERC grant focused on designing and operating efficient and resilient shipboard electric power systems on marine vessels. We addressed this problem through three research themes: system-level simulation, power and energy management, and interdependence and interoperability propagation.

The first theme was to develop models and simulation tools.

The key issue that arises when you put together a system of advanced energy conversion equipment is that unwanted interactions sometimes emerge that cause issues in equipment safety or durability. Many component-level models are proprietary. We developed system-level models to simulate the behaviour of all the interacting equipment. These models can capture the behaviour we are interested in ahead of time, rather than investing in components and discovering issues after deployment.

The second theme studied ways to optimize energy utilization efficiency across a range of different tasks under normal vessel operation.

Some of the work we did here includes optimal voyage planning considering sensitive marine habitats, real-time control to ensure dynamic performance requirements with lowest cost in some sense, and incorporating more realistic models of batteries into optimization tools to better reflect non-ideal real-world operating conditions.

The third component of this project looked at the resilience and recovery of operations after an extreme event, whether natural or manmade.

This involved modelling the interactions and interdependencies of various subsystems on board to determine the best way to recover from an emergency and/or to allocate limited resources.

How does your research fit into this?

In general, my research focuses on developing data-driven tools for power system control and operation through integrated solutions that address traditionally disparate concerns of long-term capital investment, shorter-term energy utilization and real-time power dispatch. My overarching goal is to enable the dual objectives of electrification and decarbonization across sectors.

Due to the all-pervasive nature of electricity, the work naturally spans a variety of different settings, including utility-scale power transmission and distribution, small-footprint community microgrids, marine and aerospace systems, and dual-use applications.

For the NSERC work, one challenge we were trying to address was the limitations in battery models used in power system-level optimization, which often treats batteries like simple “tanks” that can be filled or emptied. However, batteries are complex electrochemical systems with voltage and current characteristics that are sensitive to temperature and aging effects. When you put batteries into real-world charging and discharging cycles coupled with the harsh marine environment, their performance can be quite different from what was predicted by the manufacturer. We worked to integrate more realistic electrochemical models into optimization tools while containing computational complexity for practical usage.

What strategic advantages does UBC offer in this area?

There are so many phenomenal people working here. As individuals, we bring highly specialized knowledge in areas that include power systems, control, materials, naval architecture and data science. When we bring that expertise together, we are able to drive larger partnerships with greater impact and more translatable research. That applies both at an individual level and through the overlap between different research clusters.

For example, through the Pacific Rim Initiative for Sustainable Marine Systems (PRISMS), led by Rajeev Jaiman alongside Adrien Desjardins, we are bringing together people with expertise in engineering, science and social science to advance crucial marine research. I am also one of the associate directors of the Clean Energy Research Centre, which has renowned strengths in clean energy and decarbonization that are directly applicable to the marine sector as well as MASI’s aerospace and subsea sectors.

Pacific Rim Initiative for Sustainable Marine Systems (PRISMS)

Clean Energy Research Centre

Students are another essential part of this ecosystem. They carry the knowledge and tools developed at UBC into industry.

For example, one of my former PhD students, funded through the NSERC project, now works full-time for Seaspan and is integrating many of these modelling and optimization techniques into the company’s engineering workflow and design tools.

Students translate research into practical impact, ultimately strengthening the sector as a whole and Canada’s capabilities in these areas.