World's First Battery Powered Ferry
Source: gcaptain.com
Today's ship photos are of the ferry Ampere, the world's first all-electric battery powered ferry car and passenger ferry.
The electrically-powered ferry was originally developed as a submission to a Norwegian Ministry of Transport competition where the winner would get a 10-year license to operate the Lavik-Oppedal route beginning in 2015. Obviously, the Ampere design won and the vessel has been in operation since early 2015.
Ampere is owned by the Norwegian ferry operator Norled and was designed and built by Fjellstrand shipyard, located on the southwest coast of Norway, with battery technology provided by Siemens. The design is known as the “ZeroCast 120” for its 100% emissions-free operations and its capacity for 120 cars.
The ferry features a light-weight and slender catamaran hull made out of aluminum and an all-electric power train, with two electric motors with 450 kilowatts of output each.
Charging stations are housed in small buildings about the size of newsstands.
Siemen’s notes that because the power grid in the region is relatively weak, Siemens and Norled decided to install three battery packs: one lithium-ion battery on board the ferry, and one at each pier so that the ferry can recharge during turnaround times.
The lithium-ion battery charging stations, located at each pier, are charged from hydro power. Siemen’s says that the ferry only uses 150 kilowatt hours (kWh) per route, which corresponds to three days use of electricity in a standard Norwegian household.
Read the rest at: gcaptain.com
