Over the last year, ABB has been working on the project to redesign two gigantic diesel powered vessels into entirely battery-powered ships.
The project is now complete, and soon two largest all-electric ships in the world will be launched into the sea. It’s an ongoing trend. Many machines which work on conventional energy resources are now converted into working on renewable energy resources, to help save the environment. This conversion also accounts to marine transportation.
Marine transport is subdivided into certain categories, and ferries are the perfect type, which can be converted to work on alternative energy. They are the best choice because such ships usually travel for short distances, and stay in ports for a long time. Sailors may use this time to recharge the energy of the ferry. The two ferries are called Aurora and Tycho Brache. Their usual route is from Helsinki (Sweden) to Helsingor (Denmark).
The characteristics of the ships are as follows: They are 238 meters long and weight 8,414 tonnes. They carry 7.4 million passengers and 1.9 million vehicles every year. It’s incredible that such machines are now entirely powered by electricity. But the game is worth the candles. That is because a great amount of money is spared on petrol expenses. And of course, there are no carbon emissions. This means that there is no harm for the environment at all. It is not new that marine transportation is being converted to electrical power, but vessels of such size is the only existing case known today.
The inner structure of the ships includes – 640 6.5kWH batteries, alongside with converters, transformers and cooling batteries. Cables are connected to the deck houses to charge the batteries quickly. The batteries provide energy of 70 electric cars.
The Tycho Brache ship is ready to be launched, but the usage of the vessel had to be delayed for a while because the charging system in the docks is not ready yet. The company has installed massive robotic arms to resolve the charger issue.
When the ship is in the harbour, and the passengers leave the ship, and new ones enter it, the ship will be recharged for its journey back to Helsinki. The system is designed to operate even in the worst possible conditions.
The issue resolving and the installation of the robotic arms have postponed the ship launch, but soon the all-electric ships will be ready to sail.
