Scottish battery management specialist Dukosi has announced that its Dukosi Cell Monitoring System (DKCMS) has been deployed in what the company describes as China’s first all-battery new energy vessel using the technology.
The project combines Dukosi’s chip-on-cell architecture and C-SynQ communication protocol with a contactless battery management system developed by Chinese marine battery specialist Guangxi Yichuan Intelligent Technology. Lithium-ion battery cells for the vessel are being supplied by Eikto New Energy.
According to Dukosi, the vessel is an all-electric battery-powered cruise boat designed for operation on China’s inland waterways. The company said the deployment is intended to support safer and more reliable battery-electric marine transport applications as China accelerates decarbonisation of river and coastal shipping.
Dukosi: “safer, zero-emission transportation for China’s rivers”
Joseph Notaro, chief revenue officer at Dukosi, said: “Yichuan’s battery solution for marine applications is addressing the growing need for safer, zero-emission, ultra quiet and low maintenance transportation for China’s rivers and inland waterways.”
He added that DKCMS-enabled “smart cells” improve “the level of safety, reliability and adaptability required for marine applications”.
Dukosi said the system continuously monitors individual cell voltage and temperature data using contactless chip-on-cell technology rather than conventional wired sensing architectures. The company claims the approach improves fault detection, reliability and scalability while reducing wiring complexity inside battery packs.
Professor Li QingYu, chief scientist at Yichuan, said the collaboration was intended to support approval from the China Classification Society (CCS) for installation across a wider range of electrically powered vessels operating on Chinese waterways.
China has been rapidly expanding deployment of battery-electric shipping technology as part of wider “Dual Carbon” decarbonisation goals. The country already operates the world’s largest inland waterway transport system, spanning more than 127,000km of navigable rivers and canals, according to Dukosi.
The announcement also comes amid broader growth in China’s electric shipping sector. Last month, China delivered what was described as the world’s largest all-electric intelligent container vessel, the 740TEU “Ningyuan Diankun”, developed for coastal shipping operations between Ningbo and Jiaxing.
That vessel, certified by CCS, uses containerised battery systems as its primary propulsion source and supports both shore charging and battery swapping. CCS said the ship is expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by around 1,462 tonnes annually compared with a conventional vessel.
The marine sector is increasingly viewed as a major growth opportunity for advanced battery management technologies because of stringent safety requirements, particularly around thermal runaway detection and fault isolation in large-format lithium-ion systems.
Dukosi has recently been expanding its battery management activities beyond automotive applications into marine and stationary energy storage markets. Earlier this year the company also announced collaborations focused on battery passport compliance and secure cell-level traceability ahead of incoming EU battery regulations due to take effect from 2027.
