Energy as a Service

Energy as a Service

Current Direct implements an innovative battery swapping service for the operational environment of inland waterways in an attempt to electrify waterborne transport and reshape the existing market in the leap-up to a decarbonized future. Within the context of Current Direct, when an electric vessel arrives at a battery swapping station, instead of plugging a charger into the vessel, the battery swapping provider swaps the discharged battery container with one that has been charged beforehand. Consequently, the dismounted battery is charged offline.

The swapping is done within a short period that allows for the quick departure of the vessel. Such a sophisticated structure requires the deployment of a monitoring system that processes information, decides and provides directions. In this regard, the Energy-as-a-Service (EaaS) platform is to be developed as a resilient management approach of the waterborne battery swapping network.

The EaaS platform addresses numerous stochastic aspects, such as, location planning (i.e., building how many battery swapping systems (BSS) of what size and where), infrastructure deployment (i.e., how many chargers and reserve batteries each BSS should have), charging strategy (i.e., when to recharge/reserve batteries) and incorporates revenue management methodologies (e.g., pricing optimization) intending to provide vessel owners and operators with profitable and sustainable swapping services.

The EaaS platform will utilize novel technologies to pave the way for a sustainable battery swapping business model.