Powering the Ocean Floor
The Subsea Supercharger combines a fuel cell system with hydrogen and oxygen gas storage to provide up to 20kW of untethered power with energy storage up to 30MWh (30,000 kWh). The energy enables extended operations and reduced surface presence for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), extends AUV operation without preexisting infrastructure, and provides backup power for prolonging infrastructure lifetime.
Fuel Cell System
Teledyne's proven proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell technology provides excellent efficiency and long life (>10,000 hrs.). The stack design is specifically tailored for operation with pure oxygen and includes design aspects generated through years of experience with this technology. The fuel cell system features an integrated balance-of-plant (BoP) with ejector driven reactant (EDR) technology for reactant recirculation. The BoP allows the fuel cell stack to be fed reactants in a "dead-ended" configuration maximizing energy delivery.
Reactant Storage
The fuel cell system is reactant storage agnostic. Reactants can be supplied via compressed, cryogenic, or solid-state reactant storage systems. The Subsea Power Node is equipped with a compressed-gas reactant storage system. This storage system is at a technology readiness level (TRL) of 9 and is commercially refillable.
High TRL
Teledyne has a proven history of supplying high reliability fuel cells to NASA and other customers.
