Marine – Megawatt Charging Systems
Paving the way to Waterborne Charging Systems, based on solutions already implemented in-field. An industry whitepaper with lessons-learnt, specifications and recommendations for standardization bodies and marine stakeholders.
Marine electrification is a key enabler of maritime decarbonization, supporting European climate objectives while reducing emissions and improving air quality in ports and coastal areas. To enable widespread deployment of high-power vessel charging, standardized and interoperable solutions are required. Building on the Megawatt Charging System (MCS) standard developed for heavy-duty transport, the industry and marine companies authoring this whitepaper have conceptualized, developed and tested in real-life environments marine megawatt-scale charging solutions for electric vessels, validating fast, safe, and scalable charging. These actions have contributed to the development of the Marine-Megawatt Charging System (M-MCS), which extends MCS principles to address the specific operational, environmental, and safety requirements of marine applications. This whitepaper provides implementation-oriented guidance for ports, charging infrastructure operators, system integrators, and other stakeholders, presenting key requirements and recommendations for deploying interoperable, modular, and future-proof maritime charging systems based on MCS technologies and relevant international standards.
• Standardization philosophy: M-MCS is envisaged as the MCS standard applied to the maritime environment, with the upcoming IEC/IEEE 80005-4 as the marine system framework and with specific marine requirements added only where the regular MCS approach is not sufficient. Therefore, this Whitepaper recognizes IEC/IEEE 80005-4 as the natural maritime home for the DC shore-connection system requirements. Supported by CharIN MCS whitepaper, IEC61851 series and ISO15118 series framed within the waterborne sector, since they provide established charging and safety basis. Therefore, IEC/IEEE 80005-4 shall define the marine application framework, while the upcoming MCS standard, IEC 61851 and ISO 15118 provide the applicable technical building blocks. Combined, these standards can establish a solid, future-proof foundation for the much-needed Marine MCS standard.
• Communication insights: marine application adds constraints rather than creating a separate MCS system. For high-level charging communication, 10BASE-T1S should remain the preferred/common M-MCS approach, aligned with applicable recommendations and standards. The authors achieved communication success using this approach, based on the system specification showcased within this whitepaper.
• Market implementation: The proposed Marine MCS is not a competing connector or independent standard. Instead, the whitepaper describes it as a marine application profile of MCS, scaling-up common MCS communication and safety principles while adding marine-specific requirements that are mandatory to vessels and ports. Examples are vessel motion and risk of drifting, environmental robustness, cable and automated connection device (ACD) handling, charging redundancy, port integration and longer communication distances.