Ferries of the future save 65% carbon dioxide

In the strait between Denmark and Sweden, two ferries are leading the way to tomorrow’s marine transportation.

In a major project co-financed by the European Union, the M/F Tycho Brahe and M/F Aurora are still equipped with their original diesel-powered engines, but four containers on each top deck hold the equivalent of about 4160 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electrical power: 640 lithium batteries, with 11 megawatt (MW) total. Charging is done with up to 11 MW.

The ships can run on full battery, full diesel or a combined, hybrid set-up. They are two out of four ferries running the busy route between Elsinore (Helsingør), Denmark, and Helsingborg, Sweden, a yearly total of 50,000 times – and with 7.2 million passengers. The ships’ owner, ForSea, thus saves 65% CO₂ emissions on its battery-sailed initiative.

“We would really like to be a green shipping company, and we want to do something for the environment,” says Henrik Fald Hansen, Senior Chief Engineer on the M/F Tycho Brahe. “This is our contribution.”

The ferries charge the batteries with electricity coming from renewable-generation in Denmark and Sweden – such as wind, hydro and solar. Thus, when the ferries run on battery power alone, they are nearly 100% CO₂-free, says Henrik Fald Hansen. They both use DEIF Delomatic 4 systems for power management.

“These are the ferries of the future,” he says.

And then the ship’s operator – or the system itself – can initiate the hybrid mode. If the energy level in the batteries is low, then it must start up a diesel genset and operate in parallel with the batteries. The main propulsion can even charge the batteries until the ship reaches harbour.

DEIF supplied:

DEIF supplied a Delomatic 4 power management solution and AGI touch panel to the M/F Tycho Brahe and M/F Aurora ferries for hybrid diesel-electric propulsion.

Not just power. Energy

“With the batteries, you have more of an ‘energy management system,’” Per Ole says. “It’s not only the power anymore. Your system has to be able to monitor the energy left in the batteries. Are we going to use all that energy in a moment? Then it will start up a genset and run in hybrid mode.”

Henrik Fald Hansen says that when the Tycho Brahe installed the previous DEIF system in 2013, the ship’s crew had to get used to it. “Could we rely on it? We have just been really, really satisfied in the way the DEIF system handled problems for us. We could trust it. If there was a generator that wouldn’t start or something like that, the DEIF system took care of it. And we’ve had the same feeling after installing the batteries and new DEIF system. We have definitely been confident that DEIF can handle things when there are any problems.”