Posts Tagged ‘Mid-Atlantic Bight’
OOI Engineers Develop New Rechargeable Lithium-ion Battery Pack
By John Lund, Research Associate, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
The final deployment of the Coastal Pioneer Offshore Mooring (CP04OSPM-00016) was the first deployment of a prototype rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack. The deployment was a success with the battery pack providing power throughout the entire 6.5-month deployment.
Working with Mathews Associates Inc. the OOI engineering team developed a drop-in replacement lithium-ion rechargeable battery pack to replace the original one-time use alkaline packs. Each alkaline pack consists of 72 D-sized batteries that are fabricated into a hexagonal assembly. Nine of these battery packs are fitted into a buoy battery chassis that fits inside the buoy well. The packs are wired together in parallel to provide the required voltage to power the computer (buoy controller) responsible for telemetry and data-logging.
Pioneer moorings are nominally deployed for 6-month intervals. Variability in ship scheduling requires that the buoys be capable of operating for 7+ months. The alkaline battery chassis was designed to fit enough packs to power the buoy for the planned duration and or until the recovery ship arrived.
[media-caption path="https://oceanobservatories.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Lithium-batteries.jpg" link="#"]Lithium Battery chassis during testing and integration with the buoy computer. Battery chassis is on the left. Buoy end cap with Linux computer board on the bench. Wire Following Profiler center on the floor collects the majority of the Profiler Mooring data set.[/media-caption]The Offshore mooring was selected to be a test mooring because it is one of the deeper moorings in the New England Shelf (NES) Pioneer Array and as such logs and transmits more data than a shallower mooring. The larger data sets mean that the buoy up-time, and therefore power usage, is greater than one in shallower water so this would be a tougher test of the lithium-ion packs.
Although there is an increased cost to purchasing the initial set of lithium batteries there are many advantages to the rechargeable batteries. Because the alkaline packs are conservatively sized for the deployment there is often a considerable amount of power remaining in the packs when they are recovered, yet this remaining power is insufficient for another full deployment, and new batteries must be used. The chief benefit of the rechargeable batteries will be to keep the one-time use alkaline packs from going to the landfill (~1 ton per year). There is also a considerable labor savings of not having to deconstruct and reload the chassis frames with replacement batteries. Our calculations indicate that we will break in terms of procurement cost compared to alkaline batteries in approximately six years and that the lithium-ion batteries have enough charge cycles (500) to last the duration of the program. With any luck these may be the last batteries we need to purchase for the Profiler Moorings!
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PI-Added Sensors / Equipment Requests for Pioneer Array MAB Accepted After Array is Operational
We are very excited about deploying the Pioneer Array in its new location in the southern Mid-Atlantic Bight (MAB), including new designs and new sensors. The MAB location and design require new permitting, new engineering, and inclusion of new sensors as part of the core Array measurements. We are optimistic that we are on track to deploy the new Array in Spring 2024 as planned.
Because of this aggressive timeline for deployment in the new location, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has directed the OOI Facility to put acceptance and evaluation of Principal Investigator requests for new sensors/equipment on hold until the new Array has been deployed and fully operational for one month. This will allow the OOI to focus on delivery of the core OOI measurements during this critical period, including initial understanding of performance. The NSF also has directed the OOI to return assessments as soon as practicable after the hiatus has been lifted, ideally by Summer 2024.
Specific dates will be posted as they become known. Regular updates on progress at the Pioneer Array MAB will be posted here.
Read MorePioneer Relocation Update 2021-09-29
The Pioneer Array, currently sited on the New England Shelf (NES), was conceived within OOI as a re-locatable, coastal array (OOI Science Plan, 2001; OOI Science Prospectus, 2007). At the Fall 2020 American Geophysical Union meeting, the National Science Foundation announced the start of a process for relocation of the Array. After a variety of community engagement activities and two intensive Innovations Labs, it was determined that the Pioneer Array will be relocated to the southern Middle Atlantic Bight (MAB). Existing infrastructure, with some modifications, will be utilized to create a new Array to address compelling science questions at the new site.
The OOI Program is consolidating the community input and preparing for Pioneer relocation activities. The overall effort is complex, and will span roughly 30 months. In order to provide a window for these efforts within the existing operational budget, there will be a pause in Pioneer field activities. Preliminary plans are for the final recovery of the NES Pioneer Array in the fall of 2022 and the initial deployment of the MAB Array in the spring of 2024. The figure below shows the anticipated timeline, with three main phases. Phase 1 will focus on preparatory activities, including environmental and engineering assessments, and a study of regulatory requirements. During Phase 2, the bulk of the engineering and design effort will be conducted. During Phase 3, environmental compliance and permitting will be completed, along with the preparation of the infrastructure for deployment.
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