This article is structured to present an overview of a DC ship power system. The main DC grid configurations will be presented and a difference to the AC system configuration will be highlighted. Compared to the AC power system used on board ships, DC has some obvious benefits which will be explored in this paper. These benefits include: improvement of prime mover efficiency and reduction of fuel costs, weight and space savings, unity power factor operation of generators, lower transmission losses, faster and simpler parallel connection of generators and simpler implementation of energy storage. Finally, some of the challenges introduced with the DC technology will also be explored. These include: high short-circuit currents, DC protection concept and expensive and possibly non-profitable energy storage system solutions.
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