‘War of currents’: how Chinese engineers bring Thomas Edison’s DC dream to life on warship

PLA engineers have ‘taken the lead’ in Integrated Power Systems for warships, as Western countries struggle with electrical problems

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PLA engineers are working on a super warship that uses its DC IPS to power ahead of its Western competitors. Photo: PLA Navy

Published: 8:00pm, 5 Aug 2024

When there is a serious mishap on a modern warship’s power grid, such as a short circuit or equipment damage, it is sometimes necessary to reconstruct the entire power grid to isolate the fault and restore power to the rest of the ship.

Grid reconstruction like this requires fine-tuning the speed of generator operation, and the pace of these huge machines must be strictly consistent. Even the most advanced Western warships would take at least several minutes to complete these adjustments.

But a new Chinese warship can complete the job within a few milliseconds, according to a senior scientist with the Chinese navy.

One millisecond is a 60,000th of a minute.

“China has taken the lead in the field of integrated power systems (IPS) for ships” with its direct current (DC) technology at least “one generation ahead” of competitors, lead project scientist Rear Admiral Ma Weiming wrote in a peer-reviewed paper published in the Proceedings of the CSEE (Chinese Society for Electrical Engineering) on July 26.

Western navies had realised the mistake of using alternating current (AC) on their newest ships, but even if everything went to plan, their switch to DC technology would not happen until 2027 at the earliest, the researchers said.