Ocean Engineering 284 (2023) 115234

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Ocean Engineering
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/oceaneng

Speed and energy optimization method for the inland all-electric ship in
battery-swapping mode
Yan Zhang a , Lin Sun a ,∗, Tianyuan Fan b , Fan Ma a , Yiyong Xiong c
a
National Key Laboratory of Electromagnetic Energy, Naval University of Engineering, Wuhan, 430033, Hubei, China
b
College of Electrical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, Zhejiang, China
c
School of Electrical Engineering, Naval University of Engineering, Wuhan, 430033, Hubei, China

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: Zero-emission battery-powered ship is considered the ideal technical solution to achieve emission reduction and
Inland battery-powered ship energy conservation in inland shipping. However, due to long charging time, limited onboard space, and initial
All-electric ship (AES) investment cost, the all-electric ship in battery charging mode may not be suitable for inland long-distance
Speed optimization
navigation. Therefore, the all-electric ship in battery-swapping mode is proposed, and a joint optimization
Energy management
method is designed to acquire optimal voyage scheduling and energy management. First, considering the
Differential evolution (DE)
Battery-swapping
environmental factors of water speed and water depth and cargo amount, the energy consumption model for
the all-electric ship in battery-swapping mode is established by analyzing its energy transfer process. Second,
a speed and energy optimization model is established to minimize the battery-swapping cost, considering
the constraints of sailing speed, sailing time, and battery energy use. Third, differential evolution with
neighborhood search (NSDE) is adopted to solve this nonlinear and complex problem. Finally, a case study for
the ship in the Yangtze River is studied to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. The results show
that the operation cost could be minimized by this method effectively.

1. Introduction
With the comparative advantages over rail and road (Fan et al.,
2021; de Barros et al., 2022; Perčić et al., 2021) and rich inland
shipping resources in China, inland waterway transportation plays an
essential role in the development of the economy of China. In 2020,
the freight volume in the Yangtze River trunk line was 3.81 billion tons
keeping it first among the world’s inland waterways from 2005. How-
ever, environmental problems (such as climate change, air pollution,
and ecological damage) continue to worsen along the river (Lindstad
et al., 2020).
In this background, many measures are proposed to achieve energy
saving and emission reduction (Balcombe et al., 2019; Wan et al.,
2018). Among them, the all-electric ship (AES) is considered one of
the representative technologies (Fang et al., 2020). At present, tra-
ditional diesel-powered ships are being replaced by AESs gradually,
which could achieve low emissions, optimal energy allocation, and high
operation efficiency. Meanwhile, the battery-powered all-electric ship
is developed, where the battery is the only energy source onboard.
The pure battery-powered ship as a type of AES is attracting more
attention in inland shipping due to its characteristics of zero-emission
and the lowest full life cycle emission compared with ships using other
alternative fuels (Fan et al., 2021). In the past few years, there also has
been some applications for the battery-powered ship. For example, the
world’s first electric-powered car ferry named MF Ampere, which has 1
MWh of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries, began commercial operations in
2015 and could reduce 2670 tons of CO2 emission for a year (Norled,
2015). In China, the world’s first 2000-ton new energy electric ship
was delivered in 2017. A total of 2.4 MWh of supercapacitor and Li-ion
battery are installed on this ship (Futurism, 2017).
However, most battery-powered ships currently are operated in
battery charging mode. With more batteries installed onboard in the
future, the increased battery charging time will reduce ship operation
efficiency greatly. In addition, due to the limited space and investment
cost, the number of batteries installed onboard is limited and cannot
satisfy the demand of the inland ship for long-distance navigation, so
energy supplement halfway is inevitable. Moreover, the problem of bat-
tery charging in disorder by ship owners will increase the pressure on
the main grid and lower the power quality. Though the grid encourages
users to participate in peak cut by adopting time-varying price, it is still
a long way to be achieved.
The problems mentioned above could be solved by the business
mode of battery-swapping. In order to achieve long-distance inland

∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: sunlin_ee@163.com (L. Sun).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oceaneng.2023.115234
Received 7 December 2022; Received in revised form 6 June 2023; Accepted 23 June 2023
Available online 5 July 2023
0029-8018/© 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Y. Zhang et al.
ships operated in battery-swapping mode, several battery-swapping
stations (BSSs) will be built along the navigation route. When the
ship arrives at the BSSs, the depleted batteries (DB) will be replaced
by fully charged batteries (FB), then the DB will be charged in the
battery charging area, and the ship will leave the BSS to the next
BSS. In this process, the battery-swapping time is much less than its
corresponding battery charging time, and thus operation efficiency for
ships is promoted. In addition, the battery could be charged centrally
by the BSS operator. When the local department adopts the time-
varying electricity price, the operator could charge the battery at a low
price to reduce the operation cost for BSS. Besides offering the service
of battery-swapping to ships, BSS operators could sell the battery’s
electricity to the grid at a high price to increase the revenue for BSS.
Renewable energy (wind, solar, etc.) could be utilized to charge the
battery, then the full life cycle emissions of ships and BSSs could be
reduced further. Therefore, the business mode of battery-swapping may
be the best solution for the inland long-distance battery-powered ship.
However, the problem of range anxiety for electric vehicles (EVs)
(Wang et al., 2017) also exists in the battery-powered ship. Specifically,
the problem considered by the battery-powered ship is whether the
battery’s remaining energy could support the ship to operate battery-
swapping in the next BSS and finish the task punctually. In addition,
the objective for ship owners is to minimize operation cost (mainly
battery-swapping cost). For these reasons, speed optimization, which
could achieve optimal speed decisions to minimum operation cost while
satisfying the ship operation safety, is utilized in this paper.
Speed optimization is an operational measure that has been proven
the excellent performance in emission reduction and energy conserva-
tion (Psaraftis and Kontovas, 2013), and there are many studies for
it. Fagerholt et al. (2010) investigated the speed optimization problem
on the single route considering the time window. Ronen (2011) inves-
tigated the determination of sailing speed and fleet size to minimize
annual operating cost under different fuel price. Though sailing speed
is the main influencing factor in energy consumption, other factors
(such as navigational environment) should also be considered. Wang
and Meng (2012) calibrated the bunker consumption–sailing speed
relation based on the historical operating data and concluded that the
relationship would be different with the different weather conditions
in the different voyage legs. On this basis, they conducted speed opti-
mization for container ships. Fan et al. (2020) established a ship energy
efficiency model by considering multiple influencing factors (cargo
amount, sailing speed, and navigational environment). The effective-
ness of the model is verified by comparing the simulated result with
the actual collected data. Then the relation among energy efficiency
operation indices (EEOI), energy consumption, cargo amount, sailing
speed, and environmental factors are also obtained.
The more complex navigational environment for the inland ship
makes its speed optimization different from that of sea-going ships. Sun
et al. (2013) studied the EEOI for the inland ship under calm water
and actual navigation condition and found that environmental factors
also significantly impact the energy efficiency of the inland ship except
for sailing speed. Based on the collected data from the actual inland
ship, Fan et al. (2017) studied the correlation analysis of environmental
factors (water speed, wind speed, and water depth) on the energy
consumption and conducted waterway partition using the clustering
algorithms. They found that water speed and water depth are the
main influencing factors for energy consumption, and the navigational
environment of the Yangtze River has regional characteristics. Yan et al.
(2018) adopted the k-means clustering method to achieve the route
division by big data analysis and then proposed a ship energy efficiency
optimization model to determine the optimal ship engine speed in each
segment.
In the above-mentioned papers, the research objectives are mainly
the traditional diesel-powered ship. Many studies have also been car-
ried out on speed optimization for AES (Shang et al., 2016; Wen et al.,
2021; Fang et al., 2019; Hein et al., 2021). These studies mainly
2
Ocean Engineering 284 (2023) 115234
have two characteristics. One is considering energy storage system
(ESS) integration. The ESS installed onboard is mainly used to offset
the frequency load fluctuation to improve the operational flexibility
of AES. Another characteristic is that since energy management and
voyage scheduling are coupled for the all-electric ship, they always
are solved together. Shang et al. (2016) formulated the operation for
AES with ESS is and proposed a multi-objective joint generation-voyage
scheduling model to simultaneously minimize Greenhouse Gas (GHG)
emissions and fuel consumption. When the all-electric ship berths at
the port, since the shore power is the main power source to supply
all loads and charge the ESS, the cost of shore power cannot be
ignored. Considering the uncertainties of the dynamic electricity price
in each port, Wen et al. (2021) established a two-stage joint scheduling
optimization model for AES with integrated ESS to minimize the cost
of the shore power. It is found that the cost could be minimized when
the ship arrives at the port in a low-price period. He et al. (2021)
proposed a two-phase energy efficiency optimization method for the
inland hybrid-powered ship.
There are few studies for joint speed optimization and energy
management of the pure battery-powered ship. Zhang et al. (2022) pro-
posed a collaborative optimization method of battery size and sailing
speed for the inland battery-powered ship in battery charging mode,
considering the navigational environment. Gu et al. (2021) proposed a
joint voyage optimization and energy management model to minimize
the battery-swapping cost for the inland all-electric ship with swap-
pable containerized batteries. The results show that the sailing speed
and battery-swapping scheme could be optimized jointly. However,
the navigational environment is not considered in Gu et al. (2021),
which will significantly influence inland ship sailing. In addition, the
battery-swapping price is set as constant, which is not beneficial for the
operation of the ship and the BSS.
This paper aims to determine the optimal speed for the all-electric
ship in battery-swapping operation mode to minimize the operation
cost. The main contributions of this paper are listed as follows. (1) The
energy consumption model for the inland all-electric ship in battery-
swapping operation mode considering the environmental factors of
water speed and water depth, cargo amount. Then the energy consump-
tion for the ship under different operation conditions could be obtained.
(2) The speed and energy optimization model for the inland ship is
proposed to minimize the operation cost considering the constraints for
sailing speed, sailing time, and energy use. The results show that the
optimal sailing speed for the ship could be determined effectively.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, the
problem of this paper is stated. In Section 3, a ship energy consumption
model considering multiple factors is established. In Section 4, a speed
and energy optimization model for the all-electric ship in battery-
swapping mode is established. In Section 5, the differential evolution
with neighborhood search (NSDE) is adopted to solve this problem. In
Section 6, a case study is studied. Finally, conclusions are presented in
Section 7.
2. Problem statement
The typical navigation scheme for the inland all-electric ship in
battery-swapping mode is illustrated in Fig. 1. In Fig. 1, the ship sails
between Port A and Port B for cargo transportation. Specifically, the
ship sails to destination Port B from departure Port A and returns
to departure Port A. Accordingly, the route could be divided into a
forward sub-route and a backward sub-route according to the ship’s
sailing direction. The ship will perform cargo loading or unloading in
Port A or Port B, i.e., the cargo amount could be different when the
ship is sailing in a different sub-route. The ship will perform battery-
swapping operations in BSS. According to the BSS location and regional
characteristics of the navigational environment, the sailing route is
divided into several segments. The node in Fig. 1 means that two
adjacent segments have different navigational environments. Therefore,
Y. Zhang et al.
Fig. 1. A typical navigation scheme for the inland all-electric ship in battery-swapping mode.
Fig. 2. The battery-swapping process in the battery swapping station (BSS).
to minimize operation cost by using speed optimization, it is necessary
to determine the optimal speed in each segment of different sub-routes.
In addition, the battery-swapping process for the ship is shown in
Fig. 2. When the ship arrives at the port, the FB in the battery charging
area will be delivered to the port by the automatic guided vehicle
(AGV). In the port, the FB on the AGV will be unloaded temporarily
by quay cranes. The DB onboard will be unloaded from the ship and
loaded on the AGV. Then the FB will be loaded onboard. If the acquired
number of swappable battery containers is satisfied, the ship will leave
the port, and DB on the AGV will be delivered to the battery charging
area. Then the DB will be charged centralized by the BSS operator.
In this paper, the time for the ship performing the battery-swapping
operation is considered and set as constant.
The operation cost of the all-electric ship in battery-swapping mode
is mainly the battery-swapping cost, which could be calculated by
multiplying the energy consumption by the battery-swapping price. In
order to decrease the battery-swapping cost, the ship should decrease
the energy consumption and arrive at the port with a low battery-
swapping price. According to the cubic relation between sailing speed
and fuel consumption (Ronen, 1982), speed reduction (slow steaming)
could lower fuel consumption and emissions (Lindstad et al., 2011).
Though energy consumption could be decreased by speed reduction,
using speed reduction alone will increase sailing time and cause the
ship to miss the time with low battery-swapping price in the BSS and
even could not finish transportation tasks punctually. Therefore, speed
optimization is adopted to solve this problem. Furthermore, considering
that energy management and voyage scheduling are coupled for the
all-electric ship, which cannot be solved separately, the speed and
energy optimization method is proposed for the all-electric ship in
battery-swapping mode to minimize the operation cost.
3. Energy consumption model for the all-electric ship in battery-
swapping mode
In order to construct the energy consumption model, the energy
transfer process of the all-electric ship in battery-swapping mode is
analyzed. The topology of the all-electric ship in battery-swapping
mode is illustrated in Fig. 3. The output power of battery containers is
used to meet the power demand of propulsion loads and service loads.
The power for propulsion loads is shared by the propellers installed
3
Ocean Engineering 284 (2023) 115234
on the ship equally to overcome the sailing resistance to drive the
ship to sail in the water. On this basis, the energy consumption for
propulsion could be calculated by multiplying the propulsion power by
sailing time. If the water over speed and cargo amount is specified,
the propulsion power could be calculated according to the relationship
of propulsion power, speed through water (STW), and cargo amount.
The relationship could be obtained by analyzing the interaction of the
ship hull, propeller, and propulsion motor, which will be detailed in
Section 3.1. The power for service loads is used for daily use, radar,
navigation devices, and so on. In order to simplify this problem, the
energy consumption for the service loads is set as constant.
3.1. Power demand model
The relationship among the propeller thrust 𝑇𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑝 , the effective
thrust 𝑇𝐸 , and the total resistance of the ship 𝑅𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑝 can be calculated
by Eq. (1).
𝑅𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑝 = 𝑇𝐸 = (1 − 𝑡)𝑇𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑝 (1)
where 𝑡 indicates the thrust deduction factor. The effective power of
the propeller 𝑃𝐸 is shown in Eq. (2).
𝑃𝐸 = 𝑇𝐸 𝑉𝑠 = 𝑅𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑝 𝑉𝑠 (2)
where 𝑉𝑠 indicates the ship’s speed through water (STW).
The power received by the propeller 𝑃𝐷 is less than propulsion
power 𝑃𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑝 due to frictional losses in the shaft. 𝑃𝐷 is converted to 𝑃𝐸
after the interaction of the water with the propeller and hull. Then the
propulsion power 𝑃𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑝 can be presented by Eq. (3).
𝑃𝐷 𝑃𝐸
𝑃𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑝 = = (3)
𝜂𝑆 𝜂𝑆 𝜂𝑂 𝜂𝐻 𝜂𝑅
where 𝜂𝑆 is the shaft efficiency; 𝜂𝑂 is the propeller open water ef-
ficiency, 𝜂𝑂 = (𝐾𝑇 ⋅ 𝐽 )∕(𝐾𝑄 ⋅ 2𝜋), where 𝐽 indicates the propeller
advance coefficient; 𝐾𝑇 indicates the thrust coefficient; 𝐾𝑄 indicates
the torque coefficient; 𝜂𝑅 is the relative rotative efficiency; 𝜂𝐻 is the
hull efficiency, 𝜂𝐻 = (1 − 𝑡)∕(1 − 𝑤), where 𝑤 indicates the wake factor.
The propeller advance coefficient 𝐽 is given in Eq. (4).
(1 − 𝑤)𝑉𝑠
𝐽= (4)
𝑛𝐷
Y. Zhang et al. Ocean Engineering 284 (2023) 115234

Fig. 3. The topology of the battery-powered ship.

where 𝑛 indicates the propeller shaft speed; 𝐷 indicates the propeller is the water speed in the 𝑗th segment of the 𝑖th sub-route; 𝑈 is number
diameter. The propeller thrust 𝑇𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑝 is demonstrated in Eq. (5). of sub-routes; 𝑉 is number of segments. In the inland river, the SOG is
the sum or difference of STW and water speed, i.e., 𝑉𝑔,𝑖𝑗 = 𝑉𝑠,𝑖𝑗 ± 𝑉𝑤,𝑖𝑗 ,
𝑇𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑝 = 𝐾𝑇 𝜌𝑛2 𝐷4 (5) which depends on whether the ship is sailing along or against water
where 𝜌 indicates the water density. According to the Eqs. (1)–(5), the flow.
propulsion power 𝑃𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑝 is given in Eq. (6).
3.3. Energy consumption model
2𝜋𝜌𝐷2 (1 − 𝑤)3 𝐾𝑄
𝑃𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑝 = 𝑉𝑠3 (6)
𝐽 3 𝜂𝑆 𝜂𝑅 The swappable battery containers without enough energy will be
In Eq. (6), it could be found that is cubic relation between propul- unloaded when the ship swaps its battery in the BSS. The ship’s energy
sion power and STW. However, some parameters required in these consumption for navigation between two consecutive battery-swapping
models will be varied and not easy to be obtained in the practical operations 𝐸𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔,𝑚 can be calculated using Eq. (11).
operation. Thus, this relation is obtained by fitting historical operation
∑
𝑈 ∑
𝑉
data provided by the design institute, which can be presented in Eq. (7). 𝐸𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔,𝑚 = 𝑍𝑚𝑖𝑗 𝐸𝑛𝑎𝑣,𝑖𝑗 , ∀𝑚 = 1, 2, … , 𝑀 (11)
𝑖=1 𝑗=1

3
𝑃𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑝,𝑖𝑗 = 𝑎𝑖 𝑉𝑠,𝑖𝑗 2
+ 𝑏𝑖 𝑉𝑠,𝑖𝑗 + 𝑐𝑖 𝑉𝑠,𝑖𝑗 + 𝑑𝑖 (7) where 𝐸𝑛𝑎𝑣,𝑖𝑗 is the energy consumption for navigation in the 𝑗th
segment of the 𝑖th sub-route, 𝐸𝑛𝑎𝑣,𝑖𝑗 = 𝑃𝑛𝑎𝑣,𝑖𝑗 𝑇𝑛𝑎𝑣,𝑖𝑗 . 𝑍𝑚𝑖𝑗 is a binary
where 𝑎𝑖 , 𝑏𝑖 , 𝑐𝑖 , and 𝑑𝑖 are fitting coefficients of propulsion power–STW variable, as shown in Eq. (12). Eq. (12) indicates that if energy con-
relation when the ship sails in the 𝑖th sub-route. sumption in the 𝑗th segment of the 𝑖th sub-route is related to the 𝑚th
The output power of the battery for the ship sailing in the river can battery-swapping operation, 𝑍𝑚𝑖𝑗 will be set as 1; otherwise, it will be
be represented by Eq. (8). set as 0.
( ) {
1 𝑘 ⋅ 𝑃𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑝,𝑖𝑗 𝑃𝑠𝑒𝑟
𝑃𝑛𝑎𝑣,𝑖𝑗 = ⋅ + (8) 1 𝐸𝑛𝑎𝑣,𝑖𝑗 is related to 𝐸𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔,𝑚
𝜂𝑏𝑎𝑡,𝑑𝑐 𝜂𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑝 𝜂𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑣 𝜂𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑣 𝜂𝑖𝑛𝑣 𝑍𝑚𝑖𝑗 = (12)
0 otherwise
where 𝑘 is the number of propellers. 𝑃𝑛𝑎𝑣,𝑖𝑗 is power demand when
the ship sails in the 𝑗th segment of the 𝑖th sub-route; 𝑃𝑠𝑒𝑟 is power 4. Speed and energy optimization model
demand of service load; 𝜂𝑏𝑎𝑡,𝑑𝑐 is battery discharging efficiency; 𝜂𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑝
is propulsive efficiency; 𝜂𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑣 is converter efficiency; 𝜂𝑖𝑛𝑣 is inverter Based on the above-established ship energy consumption model, the
efficiency. energy consumption of the ship under different operation conditions
can be obtained. The speed and energy optimization of the ship is
3.2. Sailing time model proposed to minimize the operation cost for the battery-powered ship,
where the STW of the ship in each segment of different sub-routes are
The total operational time includes sailing time in each segment, the decision variables.
battery-swapping time in each BSS, and time for cargo loading and
unloading in ports A and B, as shown in Eq. (9). 4.1. Objective function
∑
𝑀
𝑇𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 = 𝑇𝑛𝑎𝑣 + 4 ⋅ 𝑇𝑙𝑜𝑎𝑑 + 𝑇𝑠𝑤𝑎𝑝,𝑚 (9) The objective function of battery-swapping cost 𝐶𝑠𝑤𝑎𝑝 is given in
𝑚=1 Eq. (13).
where 𝑇𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 is the whole voyage time; 𝑇𝑙𝑜𝑎𝑑 is the time for cargo loading
∑
𝑀
𝑇
or unloading in port A or port B, which is set as constant; 𝑚 indi- min 𝐶𝑠𝑤𝑎𝑝 = 𝑎𝑟𝑟,𝑚
𝐸𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔,𝑚 𝜆𝑠𝑤𝑎𝑝,𝑌 (13)
𝑚
cates the 𝑚th battery-swapping operation; 𝑀 indicates the number of 𝑚=1
battery-swapping operations; 𝑇𝑛𝑎𝑣 is the sailing time; 𝑇𝑠𝑤𝑎𝑝,𝑚 indicates 𝑇 𝑎𝑟𝑟,𝑚
the battery-swapping time in the 𝑚th battery-swapping operation. where 𝜆𝑠𝑤𝑎𝑝,𝑌 is the time-of-use (TOU) battery-swapping price of the
𝑚
The sailing time for navigation 𝑇𝑛𝑎𝑣 can be expressed by Eq. (10). 𝑌𝑚 th BSS at the 𝑇𝑎𝑟𝑟,𝑚 th time interval; 𝑌𝑚 indicates that the 𝑚th battery-
swapping operation is carried out in the 𝑌𝑚 th BSS, as shown in Eq. (14);
∑
𝑈 ∑
𝑉 ∑
𝑈 ∑
𝑉
𝐷𝑗 ∑
𝑈 ∑
𝑉
𝐷𝑗 𝑇𝑎𝑟𝑟,𝑚 is the ship arrival time in the 𝑚th battery-swapping operation
𝑇𝑛𝑎𝑣 = 𝑇𝑛𝑎𝑣,𝑖𝑗 = = (10)
𝑖=1 𝑗=1 𝑖=1 𝑗=1
𝑉𝑔,𝑖𝑗 𝑖=1 𝑗=1
𝑉𝑠,𝑖𝑗 ± 𝑉𝑤,𝑖𝑗 (i.e., start time for battery-swapping operation), which can be expressed
by Eq. (15).
where 𝐷𝑗 is the distance of the 𝑗th sailing segment; 𝑉𝑔,𝑖𝑗 is the ship’s
speed over ground (SOG) in the 𝑗th segment of the 𝑖th sub-route; 𝑉𝑤,𝑖𝑗 𝑌𝑚 = 𝑐, ∀𝑚 = 1, 2, … , 𝑀 (14)

4
Y. Zhang et al. Ocean Engineering 284 (2023) 115234

4.2.5. Battery discharging power constraint

∑
𝑚
When the ship is sailing in the river, the battery containers only
𝑇𝑎𝑟𝑟,𝑚 = 𝑇𝑛𝑎𝑣,𝑚 + 𝑇𝑙𝑜𝑎𝑑 + (𝑚 − 1)𝑇𝑠𝑤𝑎𝑝,𝑚 + 2𝑇𝑙𝑜𝑎𝑑 𝑋𝑚 (15)
𝑚=1
operate in discharging mode. The process of charging the battery con-
tainers is done by the BSS, which is not considered here. In addition, the
where 𝑐 is the 𝑐th BSS; 𝑇𝑛𝑎𝑣,𝑚 is the sailing time between two consec-
discharging power of battery containers should be limited. Otherwise,
utive battery-swapping operations, as illustrated in Eq. (16); 𝑋𝑚 is a it will cause damage to the battery. Thus, the battery discharging power
binary variable, as shown in Eq. (17). Eq. (17) indicates that if the 𝑚th constraint is shown in Eq. (23). Moreover, it is worth noting that the
battery-swapping operation is carried out when the direction of ship battery containers are discharged one by one, so the discharging power
sailing is from Port B to Port A, 𝑋𝑚 will be set as 1; otherwise, it will limit is for a single battery container.
be set as 0.
min max
𝑃𝑏𝑎𝑡,𝑑𝑐 ≤ 𝑃𝑛𝑎𝑣,𝑖𝑗 ≤ 𝑃𝑏𝑎𝑡,𝑑𝑐 (23)
∑
𝑈 ∑
𝑉
𝑇𝑛𝑎𝑣,𝑚 = 𝑍𝑚𝑖𝑗 𝑇𝑛𝑎𝑣,𝑖𝑗 , ∀𝑚 = 1, 2, … , 𝑀 (16) where min and
𝑃𝑏𝑎𝑡,𝑑𝑐 max
𝑃𝑏𝑎𝑡,𝑑𝑐 the minimum and maximum discharging power
𝑖=1 𝑗=1
{ for battery.
1 ship sails from Port B to Port A
𝑋𝑚 = (17)
0 ship sails from Port A to Port B 5. Solution method

4.2. Constraints Due to the above-established optimization model of nonlinear-

ity and complexity, differential evolution with neighborhood search
(NSDE) is adopted to solve this problem. DE is a powerful population-
4.2.1. Sailing time constraint based stochastic real-parameter optimization algorithm proposed by
Eq. (18) ensures the ship can finish the transportation punctually. Storn and Price (1995) and is famous for its simple concept, fewer
𝑚𝑎𝑥
parameter, and good performance in searching global optimums (Das
𝑇𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 ≤ 𝑇𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 (18) and Suganthan, 2011; Qin et al., 2009). The implementation processes
𝑚𝑎𝑥 is the maximum ship’s total operational time.
where 𝑇𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 are given below.
Step 1: The first step for DE is population initialization. The pop-
ulation size is (𝑁𝑃 , 𝐷), where 𝑁𝑃 is the number of individuals and
4.2.2. Minimum and maximum speed over ground constraint 𝐷 = 2𝑁 is the number of decision variables of STW in each segment
Considering the regulation of the local maritime department, the of two sub-routes. The 𝑖th individual of the population in the current
real sailing condition in the channel, and the requirement from the iteration 𝐺 is 𝑥𝑖,𝐺 = (𝑥1𝑖,𝐺 , 𝑥2𝑖,𝐺 , 𝑥3𝑖,𝐺 , … , 𝑥𝐷𝑖,𝐺 ), 𝑖 = 1, 2, … , 𝑁𝑃 , where
transportation company, the speed over ground constraint in Eq. (19) 𝑥𝑗𝑖,𝐺 is 𝑗th parameter of vector 𝑥𝑖,𝐺 .
should be satisfied. Step 2: Then the mutation, crossover, and selection operations will
be implemented, and their formulations are shown in Eqs. (24)–(26):
𝑚𝑖𝑛 𝑚𝑎𝑥
𝑉𝑔,𝑖𝑗 ≤ 𝑉𝑠,𝑖𝑗 ± 𝑉𝑤,𝑖𝑗 ≤ 𝑉𝑔,𝑖𝑗 (19)
𝑣𝑖,𝐺+1 = 𝑥𝑟1 ,𝐺 + 𝐹𝑖 ⋅ (𝑥𝑟2 ,𝐺 − 𝑥𝑟3 ,𝐺 ), (𝑖 ≠ 𝑟1 ≠ 𝑟2 ≠ 𝑟3 ) (24)
𝑚𝑖𝑛 and 𝑉 𝑚𝑎𝑥 are the minimum and maximum SOG limit in the
where 𝑉𝑔,𝑖𝑗 𝑔,𝑖𝑗 {
𝑗th segment of the 𝑖th sub-route, respectively. 𝑣𝑗𝑖,𝐺+1 if (𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑗𝑖 ≤ 𝐶𝑅)𝑜𝑟(𝑗 = 𝑗𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑑 )
𝑢𝑗𝑖,𝐺+1 = , 𝑗 = 1, 2, … , 𝐷. (25)
𝑥𝑗𝑖,𝐺 otherwise
{
4.2.3. Minimum and maximum speed through water constraint 𝑢𝑖,𝐺+1 𝑓 (𝑢𝑖,𝐺+1 ) ≤ 𝑓 (𝑥𝑖,𝐺 )
𝑥𝑖,𝐺+1 = (26)
Eq. (20) is used to avoid the overloading of the propulsion motor. 𝑥𝑖,𝐺 𝑓 (𝑢𝑖,𝐺+1 ) > 𝑓 (𝑥𝑖,𝐺 )

𝑚𝑖𝑛 𝑚𝑎𝑥 where 𝑥, 𝑣, and 𝑢 indicate target vector, mutant vector, and trial vector,
𝑉𝑠,𝑖𝑗 ≤ 𝑉𝑠,𝑖𝑗 ≤ 𝑉𝑠,𝑖𝑗 (20)
respectively; indices 𝑟1 , 𝑟2 , 𝑟3 ∈ [1, 𝑁𝑃 ] indicate mutually exclusive
𝑚𝑖𝑛 and 𝑉 𝑚𝑎𝑥 are the minimum and maximum STW limit in the
where 𝑉𝑠,𝑖𝑗 integers; 𝐹𝑖 is a factor that controls the difference vector (𝑥𝑟2 ,𝐺 − 𝑥𝑟3 ,𝐺 );
𝑠,𝑖𝑗
𝑗th segment of the 𝑖th sub-route, respectively. 𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑗𝑖 ∈ [0, 1] is the 𝑗th evaluation of a uniform random number
generator; 𝑗𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑑 ∈ 1, 2, … , 𝐷 is a randomly chosen index that ensures
that 𝑢𝑖,𝐺+1 gets at least one parameter from 𝑣𝑖,𝐺+1 ; 𝐶𝑅 ∈ [0, 1] is the
4.2.4. Energy consumption constraint crossover rate; 𝑓 (𝑥) is the objective function to be minimized, which is
In order to ensure operation safety and increase the battery life calculated by using Eq. (13).
cycle, the maximum allowable electric energy consumption for the ship Furthermore, Yang et al. (2008) found that the Cauchy operator
is presented Eq. (21). has an excellent performance in global search, while the Gaussian
operator is better at local search in a good region. Then they proposed a
𝐸𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔,𝑚 ≤ 𝐷𝑜𝐷𝑚𝑎𝑥 ⋅ 𝐸𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑝,𝑚 , ∀𝑚 = 1, 2, … , 𝑀 (21) hybridization of DE with the neighborhood search strategy. The method
is utilized in this paper, as shown in Eq. (27).
where 𝐷𝑜𝐷𝑚𝑎𝑥 is the maximum allowed depth of discharge (𝐷𝑜𝐷). {
The battery capacity for the ship is related to the number of swap- 𝑁𝑖 (0.5, 0.5) if 𝑈𝑖 (0, 1) ≤ 0.5
𝐹𝑖 = , 𝑗 = 1, 2, … , 𝐷. (27)
pable battery containers loaded onboard with constant battery capacity. 𝐶𝑖 (0, 1) otherwise
where 𝑁𝑖 (0.5, 0.5) denotes the normally distributed random value with
𝐸𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑝,𝑚 = ℎ𝑚 ⋅ 𝐸𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑟 (22) mean of 0.5 and standard deviation of 0.5; 𝐶𝑖 (0, 1) denotes the Cauchy
random variable with scale parameter 𝑡 = 1; 𝑈𝑖 (0, 1) is the uniform
where 𝐸𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑝,𝑚 is the battery capacity of the ship after the 𝑚th battery- random number.
swapping operation; ℎ𝑚 is the number of containers loaded onboard af- Step 3: 𝐺 = 𝐺 + 1. Go to Step 2 until the maximum iteration number
ter the 𝑚th battery-swapping operation; 𝐸𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑟 is the battery capacity is reached.
for one battery container. The flowchart for the NSDE is presented in Fig. 4.

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Y. Zhang et al. Ocean Engineering 284 (2023) 115234

Table 1
Technical and operational parameters of the inland all-electric ship in battery-swapping mode.
Parameter Value Parameter Value Parameter Value
Length 121.7 m Number of battery swap stations 5 Propulsive efficiency 0.91
Width 21.6 m Number of battery-swapping operations 7 Converter efficiency 0.95
Depth 7.5 m Time for battery-swapping 1.5 h Inverter efficiency 0.95
Design draft 6.5 m Battery capacity for one container 1.94 MW Service load 80kW
Deadweight 12500 t Maximum DoD for battery 0.8 Battery discharging efficiency 1
Design speed 15 km/h Time for cargo loading or unloading 11 h Maximum battery discharging power 0
Motor rated power 600 kW× 2 Sailing time limitation 280 h Minimum battery discharging power 1.9 MW
Number of propellers 2

Table 2
The distance in each segment.
Segment 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Total
Distance (km) 230 35 125 95 121 125 107 111 65 141 1155

Table 3
Minimum water depth, maximum draft, and maximum cargo amount in different
seasons.
Months 1∼3, 12 4, 10∼11 5∼9
Minimum water depth (m) 5.0 6.0 6.9
Maximum draft (m) 4.6 5.4 6.5
Maximum cargo amount (tons) 7900 10000 12500

6. Case study and result analysis

6.1. Case study

This paper takes the research objective of an inland pure battery-

powered AES sailing on the Yangtze River. The target ship sails be-
tween Nantong Port in Jiangsu province and Chenglingji Port in Hunan
province for cargo transportation. In Table 1, the ship’s technical and
operational parameters are detailed.

6.1.1. Route division

The sailing route of the inland battery-powered all-electric ship is
illustrated in Fig. 5. The route is divided into ten segments based on
the BSSs’ location and characteristics of the environmental factors of
water speed and water depth. The distance in each segment is listed in
Table 2. The total distance of the route is 1155 km.
Fig. 4. Flow chart of differential evolution with neighborhood search (NSDE).
6.1.2. Voyage scheme for the inland all-electric ship in battery-swapping
mode
The voyage scheme is predetermined, as shown in Fig. 6. In Fig. 6 The data on environmental factors of water speed and water depth
the ship will swap its battery in BSSs 3 and 5 in the forward sub-route
provided by the local maritime department are presented in Fig. 8. It
and all BSSs in the backward sub-route. The number of swappable bat-
could be found that the environment has obvious seasonal and regional
tery containers loaded onboard is 10 in all battery-swapping operations
characteristics. It is noted that the direction of water speed in Fig. 8(a)
except the operation in BSS 2 on the backward route. Considering more
is the same as the ship sailing in the forward route. Therefore, in this
energy consumed when the ship sailing from BSS2 to BSS 1, two more
paper, the ship sails along the water flow in the forward sub-route and
battery containers are loaded onboard when the ship is in BSS2, then
against the water flow in the backward sub-route.
the number of battery containers onboard after leaving BSS2 in the
In the inland river, the draft is limited to waterway depth. The ship’s
backward sub-route would be 12.
draft is determined by the cargo amount (Fan et al., 2020). Therefore,
6.1.3. Data acquisition the varied water depth in different seasons in Fig. 8(b) means that the
Data acquisition will be investigated in this section. The data of maximum cargo amount is different in different seasons. Considering
service load power, propeller revolutions, and propulsion load power the cargo amount is unchanged when the ship sails one single sub-
of each propeller is obtained by the energy management system (EMS); route, the maximum cargo amount for the ship is determined by the
the data of the ship’s position and speed over ground are obtained by minimum water depth. According to Fig. 8(b), the minimum water
the automatic identification system (AIS); the data of each swappable depth, the maximum draft, and the maximum cargo amount in different
battery container’s state of charge (SOC) and output power data are ob- seasons are determined and illustrated in Table 3.
tained by battery management system (BMS). Besides the information Notably, the temporal distribution of the seasonal characteristics
obtained from devices installed onboard, the data on environmental of water speed and water depth is different. Considering the seasonal
factors, operation conditions, and the battery-swapping price in each characteristics of water speed and water depth, five typical operation
BSS are also collected. The data of TOU battery-swapping price in five conditions for the battery-powered ship could be obtained, as illus-
BSSs is presented in Fig. 7. trated in Table 4. In Table 4, the cargo amount for the ship sailing

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Y. Zhang et al. Ocean Engineering 284 (2023) 115234

Fig. 5. The navigation route of the inland all-electric ship in battery-swapping mode.

Fig. 6. The voyage scheme for inland all-electric ship in battery-swapping mode.

Table 4
Five typical operation conditions for the all-electric ship in battery-swapping mode.
Operation condition A B C D E
Months 1∼3, 12 4, 11 10 5∼6, 9 7∼8
Cargo amount in 7900 10000 10000 12500 12500
forward sub-route
(tons)
Cargo amount in 7900 7900 7900 7900 7900
backward sub-route
(tons)

in different sub-routes are different. The reason is that the energy

Fig. 7. Battery-swapping price in each battery swap station.
consumption for a ship sailing against the water flow is higher than that
for a ship sailing along the water, which will be detailed in Section 6.2.
This condition will be more obvious when the water speed is higher.
For example, the difference in cargo amount of two sub-routes is the
highest in operation condition E.
With different cargo amount, the 𝑃𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑝 - 𝑉𝑠 relation would be varied.
Therefore, the experimental data for the ship with different cargo
amount are acquired to fit the 𝑃𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑝 - 𝑉𝑠 relation, as shown in Fig. 9.
In Fig. 9, the values of 𝑅2 are 1.0000 for the blue line, 1.0000 for the
green line, and 0.9917 for the red line. These results show a good fitting
performance for these regression functions.

6.2. Result analysis

6.2.1. Comparative analysis of optimal results under different battery-

swapping cost
In order to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, a
comparative analysis of the optimal results under TOU and fixed pricing
mode is conducted. These cases are studied with typical operation
condition C in Table 4. The average battery-swapping price in each BSS
in Fig. 7 is used as the fixed battery-swapping price.
Case 1: An optimal cost study considering TOU battery-swapping
price;
Case 2: An optimal cost study considering fixed battery-swapping
price.
Fig. 8. The environmental factors of the sailing route in different segments and seasons:
The optimal results under different battery-swapping pricing modes,
(a) water speed; (b) water depth.
including STW, SOG, and energy consumption in each segment, are

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Y. Zhang et al. Ocean Engineering 284 (2023) 115234

Fig. 9. The fitting curves of 𝑃𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑝 - 𝑉𝑠 relation.

Fig. 10. The optimal result in each segment under different battery-swapping pricing modes.

Table 5
Optimal result in each battery-swapping operation under different battery-swapping price.
Number of battery-swapping 1# 2# 3# 4# 5# 6# 7# Total
Energy consumption in Case 1 (MWh) 9.8 11.9 9.0 12.6 11.2 12.8 15.9 83.3
Energy consumption in Case 2 (MWh) 9.8 12.2 9.2 12.4 11.5 12.0 15.3 82.3
Start time for battery-swapping in Case 1 (h) 33.8 76.8 127.0 159.4 192.2 220.3 256.2 –
Start time for battery-swapping in Case 2 (h) 33.5 75.1 124.7 157.9 188.5 218.6 256.5 –
Battery-swapping cost in Case 1 (CNY) 14773.7 14018.4 8265.5 18934.6 12996.1 15452.8 25162.3 109603.4
Battery-swapping cost in Case 2 (CNY) 14824.9 19028.2 14379.8 18694.6 17464.3 18951.6 24165.7 127509.3

illustrated in Fig. 10. In Fig. 10, F means forward sub-route and B
means backward route. As can be seen, the results are different under
different battery-swapping pricing modes.
In addition, there are some similar characteristics of these results.
With water speed, though the STW in the forward sub-route is lower
than that in the backward route, its SOG in the forward sub-route
is higher than that in the backward route. In addition, the energy
consumption for the ship sailing in the same segment of the backward
sub-route would be higher than that for the ship sailing in the same
segment of the forward route. The reason for this phenomenon is given
below. On the one hand, according to Eq. (7), the propulsion power
under different cargo amount is determined by STW. Thus, higher
propulsion power is required when the ship sails in the backward route.
On the other hand, since the sailing time is determined by SOG, the
longer sailing time is consumed when the ship sails in the backward
route. Considering that energy consumption could be calculated by
multiplying sailing time by propulsion power, more energy will be
consumed when the ship sails against the water flow in the same
segment of the backward route.
The optimal results under different battery-swapping pricing modes,
including energy consumption, start time for battery-swapping, and
battery-swapping cost in each battery-swapping operation, are illus-
trated in Table 5. As presented in Table 5, the total energy consumption
in Case 1 is higher than that in Case 2 by about 1 MWh. How-
ever, the total battery-swapping cost decreased from 127509.3 CNY
in Case 2 to 109603.4 CNY in Case 1, a reduction of 14%. The
decrease in battery-swapping cost mainly happens in the 2#, 3#, 5#
and 6# battery-swapping operations. The reason is that the start time
for battery-swapping in these operations is the time with the lowest
battery-swapping price of the day. This phenomenon is most obvious
in the 6# battery-swapping operation where the energy consumption
in Case 1 is 0.8 MWh higher than that in Case 2, while the battery-
swapping cost in Case 1 is 3498.8 CNY lower than that in Case 2. For
the other four battery-swapping operations, the ship could arrive at BSS
with a lower battery-swapping price and lower energy consumption
to reduce operation cost. Therefore, operation costs could be reduced
effectively by adopting the TOU battery-swapping price, and thus the
operation pressure for BSS is reduced. More importantly, the superiority
of TOU battery-swapping price also is proved.
6.2.2. Comparative analysis of optimal results under different typical oper-
ation conditions
In this section, the results of the proposed five operation conditions
in Table 4 are compared and analyzed. The optimal results for the
five operation conditions, including STW, SOG, power demand, and

8
Y. Zhang et al.
Fig. 11. The optimal results in each segment for five typical operation conditions: (a) STW; (b) SOG; (c) Power demand; (d) Energy consumption.
energy consumption in each segment, are illustrated in Fig. 11. The
energy consumption in each battery-swapping operation for five typical
operation conditions is shown in Fig. 12.
For the five operation conditions, the difference between operation
conditions B and C as well as D and E is the variation in the magnitude
of water speed; the difference between operation conditions A and
B as well as C and D is the variation in cargo amount in forward
route. On this basis, there could be two kinds of comparative analyses:
comparative analysis under different water speed; comparative analysis
under different cargo amount in the forward route.
6.2.2.1. Result analysis under different water speed. Result comparison
between operation conditions B and C: In the forward route, STW,
power demand, and energy consumption are decreased in all segments
except 4F; SOG is increased in the segments 1F, 3F, 4F, 7F, and 10F and
decreased in segments 2F, 5F, 6F, 8F, 9F. In the backward route, STW,
power demand, and energy consumption are increased in all segments;
SOG is increased in segments 9B, 8B, 5B, and 3B, decreased in segments
10B, 7B, 6B, 4B, 2B, and not changed in the 1B. Energy consumption
are increased in 3# to 7# battery-swapping operation and decreased in
other battery-swapping operation.
9
Ocean Engineering 284 (2023) 115234
Result comparison between operation conditions D and E: In the
forward route, STW, SOG, power demand, and energy consumption
are increased in the 1F, 2F, 3F, 4F, and 10F and decreased in the 5F,
7F, and 8F. In segment 6F, STW and power demand are unchanged
while SOG is increased and the energy consumption is decreased.
In segment 9F, STW, SOG, and power demand are increased while
energy consumption is decreased. In the backward route, STW and
power demand are increased in segments 10B, 9B, 8B, 7B, 6B, and
5B, decreased in segments 4B, 3B, 2B, and unchanged in 1B; SOG is
increased in segments 10B, 9B, 8B, 7B, 6B and decreased in segments
5B, 4B, 3B, 2B and 1B; energy consumption is increased in all segments.
Energy consumption is increased in all battery-swapping operations
except 2#.
By observing the above result comparison, the variation trend of
STW in all segments keeps the same as that of power demand since
the relationship between STW and propulsion is unchanged under
unchanged cargo amount. In addition, the energy consumption in all
segments of the backward sub-route is increased. Then the energy
consumption in the battery-swapping operation related to the segments
in the backward sub-route is increased. The increase in the magnitude
of water speed means that the water speed is faster in the forward
Y. Zhang et al.
Fig. 12. The energy consumption in each battery-swapping operation for five typical operation conditions.
sub-route and slower in the backward route. For the ship sailing in
the forward route, when the ship keeps the STW unchanged or even
decreased in the same segment with the faster water speed, the SOG
would be increased. Then the power demand and sailing time are both
decreased, and thus the energy consumption is decreased. For the ship
sailing in the backward route, when the ship keeps the STW unchanged
or even increased in the same segment with the slower water speed,
the SOG would be decreased. Then the power demand and sailing
time are both increased, and thus the energy consumption is increased.
Therefore, with the increased magnitude of water speed, it is easy to
achieve energy consumption reduction for the ship sailing along the
water flow in the forward route, and this condition is reversed for the
ship sailing against the water flow in the backward route.
In addition, there is an increase in energy consumption in battery
swapping operation 1# between operation conditions D and E, which
differs from that between operation conditions B and C. In Fig. 12, STW
and corresponding power demand of the segments of 1F-4F related to
battery swapping operation 1# are increased since the cargo amount
is heavier for operation condition D, which requires more power under
the same STW. Though the sailing time of the segments are decreased
through the increase in the SOG, the energy consumption in operation
1# is still increased due to the higher impact of the increase in power
demand. Increasing STW in the forward route will help the ship to
reduce the increased magnitude of STW in the backward route. With
the ship sailing against faster water speed in the backward route, the
higher STW are required to keep the same SOG as before, but higher
power demand is required. Therefore, though the energy consumption
is increased in the forward route, the increased magnitude of energy
consumption is reduced in the backward route, and the total sailing
time is controlled under the maximum total sailing time.
6.2.2.2. Result analysis under different cargo amount in the forward route.
Result comparison between operation conditions A and B: In the seg-
ments of forward route, STW and SOG are increased in segments 1F,
2F, 3F and 8F and decreased in segments 4F, 5F, 6F, 7F, 9F and 10F;
power demand is increased in all segments except 10F; the energy
consumption is increased in all segments. In the segments of backward
route, STW, SOG, power demand, and energy consumption are in-
creased in segments 10B, 9B, 8B and 2B and decreased in segments 7B,
6B, 5B, 4B, 3B, and 1B. Energy consumption are increased in 1# to 4#
battery-swapping operation and decreased in other battery-swapping
operation.
Result comparison between operation conditions C and D: In the
segments of the forward route, STW and SOG are increased in segments
1F, 3F, 6F, 8F, 9F, and 10F and decreased in segments 2F, 4F, 5F,
and 7F; power demand is increased in all segments except 2F and 4F;
the energy consumption is increased in all segments except 4F. In the
segments of the backward route, STW, SOG, power demand, and energy
consumption are increased in segments 7B, 5B, and 2B, decreased in
segments 10B, 9B, 8B, 6B, 4B, and 3B, and unchanged in segment
1B. Energy consumption is increased in 1# to 3# battery-swapping
operations and decreased in other battery-swapping operations.
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Ocean Engineering 284 (2023) 115234
Table 6
Optimal results for five typical operation conditions.
Operation condition Total energy Total
consumption (MWh) battery-swapping
cost (CNY)
A 72.4 90874.5
B 77.5 100810.5
C 83.3 109603.4
D 85.1 112169.2
E 93.2 122089.7
By observing the above result comparison, the variation trend of
SOG is the same as that of STW in all segments since water speed is
unchanged. The energy consumption in the segments of the forward
sub-route is almost all increased. Then the energy consumption in the
battery-swapping operation related to the segments in the forward sub-
route is increased. The reason is that the relationship between STW
and propulsion power is changed in the forward sub-route under the
changed cargo amount. As seen in Fig. 9, more propulsion power is
required with more cargo loaded onboard, which means more energy
is consumed if the ship keeps the same STW in the same segment.
Moreover, though the STW in some segments is decreased, the power
demand may still be increased. Then the sailing time is also increased,
so the energy consumption must be increased. Therefore, with in-
creased cargo amount, energy consumption is easily increased. In the
backward route, the cargo amount and water speed are not changed, so
the STW, SOG, power demand and energy consumption have the same
variation trend.
The numerical results are presented in Table 6. With the increase
in water speed and cargo amount, there is an increasing trend in total
energy consumption and battery-swapping cost.
To sum up, water speed and water depth both have an impor-
tant impact on ship navigation. Under the variation of navigational
environment, it is essential to find the trade-off between the energy
consumption and the ship’s start battery-swapping time to minimize
operation cost. Specifically, the ship will slow down in some segments
to save energy and speed up to help the ship arrive at BSS with a low
battery-swapping price. Finally, the minimized operation cost could be
achieved by the proposed method, and the effectiveness and robustness
of the proposed method under different typical operation conditions are
verified.
6.2.3. Comparative analysis of optimal results under different time con-
straints
Due to the uncertainties in the voyage of weather conditions, wa-
terway congestion, and port operation, the requirement in the time
window for ship operators would be varied. In this paper, the opti-
mization results under operation condition C with different sailing time
constraints from 260 to 300 h are obtained using the proposed method,
as presented in Figs. 13 and 14. The total energy consumption and
battery-swapping cost with different time constraints are illustrated in
Table 7.
Y. Zhang et al. Ocean Engineering 284 (2023) 115234

Fig. 13. The optimal results in each segment under different time constraints: (a) SOG; (b) Energy consumption.

Fig. 14. The optimal results in battery-swapping operation under different time constraints.

In Fig. 13, with the increase in time constraints, there is more poten- Table 7
tial for the ship to choose to reduce speed in segments to save energy. Optimal results under different time constraints.

In addition, to arrive at the port with a relatively low battery-swapping Sailing time Total energy Total
constraint (hours) consumption (MWh) battery-swapping
station, the ship also speeds up in some segments. Correspondingly, in
cost (CNY)
Fig. 14, the energy consumption in each battery-swapping operation is
260 96.8 125507.8
reduced or not changed. Then there would be a significant downward
270 87.6 112228.7
trend in total energy consumption and battery-swapping cost, as shown 280 83.3 109603.4
in Table 7. Therefore, the ship’s energy consumption and battery- 290 81.3 100545
swapping cost are both reduced with the increase in time constraints. 300 81.4 100614.7
In addition, the results under the sailing time constraint of 290 h and
300 h are close. This means that with sailing time increasing further,
the effect brought by increasing sailing time may not be obvious.
scheduling and energy management for the inland all-electric ship in
The main reason is that the ship’s speed is close to the lowest speed
battery-swapping mode, a speed and energy optimization method con-
limitation under these time constraints, which cannot be lower. In
sidering multiple environmental factors and the time-varying battery-
summary, the ship operation could reduce operational costs greatly by
swapping price is proposed to minimize battery-swapping cost. The
properly increasing the time constraint. Moreover, if the efficiency of
energy consumption model is established by analyzing the energy
ship operation could be improved, the sailing time would be relatively
increased, and correspondingly the battery-swapping cost also could be transfer process of the battery-powered ship. The NSDE algorithm is
reduced. adopted to determine the optimal sailing speed in each segment. The
optimization results show that the optimal speed in each segment could
6.2.4. Computation efficiency analysis be determined effectively, and battery-swapping cost could be reduced
The coverage result is illustrated in Fig. 15. The NSDE’s conver- greatly. Compared with the method considering the fixed battery-
gence speed is faster than that of classical DE (F=0.7, CR=0.9), which swapping price, about 14% of operation costs could be saved. In ad-
converges at about 120 generations. In addition, the result of NSDE dition, the optimal results under different typical operation conditions
is better than that of DE, and classical DE is trapped into the local are compared, and the influence of the variation of the navigational
optimum. Therefore, the high effectiveness of the NSDE is proven. environment on the ship’s energy consumption and operation cost are
analyzed. Moreover, we also found that increasing time constraints
7. Conclusion could reduce operation cost greatly.
Furthermore, since this paper only considers one single ship, the
Battery-swapping mode is the optimal feasible solution for the long- future work will extend this method to the all-electric fleet in battery-
distance inland battery-powered ship. To achieve the optimal voyage swapping mode, considering more influencing factors such as fleet

11
Y. Zhang et al.
Fig. 15. Convergence curve.
deployment. In addition, the collaborative optimal operation scheme
for BSS and all-electric fleets in battery-swapping mode will also be
investigated.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Yan Zhang: Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing,
Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Investigation, Resources,
Data curation. Lin Sun: Writing – original draft, Writing – review
& editing, Visualization, Software. Tianyuan Fan: Writing – original
draft, Visualization. Fan Ma: Resources, Supervision, Project adminis-
tration, Funding acquisition. Yiyong Xiong: Supervision.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
influence the work reported in this paper.
Data availability
The authors do not have permission to share data
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