Exploring the potentials of electrical waterborne transport in Europe: the E-ferry concept

This paper presents the concept of a fully electrified ferry that aims to support and promote energy efficient, zero GHG emission and air pollution, free waterborne transportation for island communities, coastal zones and inland waterways in Europe and beyond. Existing state-of-the-art ferries with 100% electric drive train systems are suffering from major limitations in range and are thus only being built and applied for very short ferry connections. The E-ferry, goes beyond this limitation targeting medium range connections and aims to become the ferry with the largest battery pack ever installed on a vessel. Other state-of-the-art solutions are based on retrofit, integrating hybrid or 100% electric systems in existing ferries suffering from lack of energy efficiency due to an existing energy inefficient vessel design. The E-ferry concept also differs from all other known projects by a record breaking high charging power of up to 4 MW allowing for short port stays. This is important for the operational profile of most ferry routes. Starting from a state of the art analysis on the use of alternative fuels in EU ferries, the paper presents the barriers that currently exist in Europe preventing the successful implementation of electrical ferries and how the proposed E-ferry aims to address them. It also reports on the competitive advantages of E-ferry in terms of cost efficiency, speed, trip frequency, capacity, dependability and overall environmental performance. Finally, the market penetration potential of this innovative ship is assessed.