USA: Bluefin’s Megawatt-Hour Batteries Energize Subsea Industry

Bluefin Robotics, a leading provider of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) and related subsea technologies, announced that as of this month the company’s in-house battery group has produced over 1,000,000 watt-hours of subsea batteries. The announcement comes on the heels of the company receiving several orders for AUVs, vehicle power upgrades, and customized power systems for the commercial oil and gas market.

“Storing and delivering power is one of the most challenging aspects of subsea platforms,” said David Kelly, President and CEO of Bluefin Robotics. “We are thrilled to apply the advances we’ve made with our AUV power solution elsewhere to solve an industry-wide problem.”

Bluefin has been building field-swappable subsea batteries for over ten years to address critical power needs for their modular AUVs. The company offers a commercial-off-the-shelf 1.5 kWh pack and custom power solutions for a variety of underwater applications including profilers, subsea equipment, ROVs, and other submersible platforms.

“We chose the Bluefin battery because it is fully pressure-tolerant, easy to replace, and provides very high energy density,” said Andrew Barnard, Vice President of Research and Development at WET Labs. WET Labs has been using the 1.5 kWh pack in their Autonomous Moored Profilers for the last five years. For more details on recent deployments of the profiler, please visit the Autonomous Moored Profiler webpage.

Bluefin’s standard 1.5kWh pack is waterproof, pressure-tolerant, and includes its own smart electronics for self-balancing, monitoring and safety. Drop-and-play connectors allow for users to easily swap packs in minutes at sea without ever opening a pressure vessel. In addition, batteries can be shipped by air in their UN-certified case.

Since the core technology is scalable, Bluefin has delivered batteries in a variety of capacities including 1.8 kWh, 3.5 kWh, and 8.88 kWh packs along with power solutions that scale as large as 148 kWh. Bluefin is currently developing new configurations targeted at specific applications.

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Press Release, January 11, 2013