Lightweight and electrically propelled Ro-Pax ships
Rapport, 2022
The objective of this project was to establish an innovative ship concept for a fully electric RoPax ship, which makes use of new technology, especially in the area of electrical propulsion and energy storage. The project also included a risk assessment of the concept and identification of possible follow-up studies of critical design items. There is a growing demand for all types of shipping to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases and particles, and also NOx and SOx. Meeting IMO’s emissions objective by 2050 will require large efforts both for energy efficiency measures on existing ships and for new concepts for fossil-free ships. Electrical propulsion for small ships has been discussed for a long time, and many installations are operational today. This project is an innovation project with participation from industrial partners contributing to the overall goal of sustainable shipping by proposing a ship concept for an electrically powered large Ro-Pax ship for shorter international voyages. The amount of electric energy estimated to be stored in batteries onboard is approximately 60 MWh. This is ten times more than the current largest marine battery installation. When it comes to fire safety, it is very important with a holistic approach, including integrity, ventilation, failure detection, and fire suppression methods etc., based on hazard identification. The battery fire safety concept developed in this project constitutes safety requirements guidelines for large ship battery installations and is one of the main results from the conducted risk analysis work. The idea of the presented concept is that it should be applicable for any electrically powered ship and that it could be used as a starting point for discussions on IMO harmonized regulations for battery energy storage systems onboard ships. It can be concluded that a fully electric Ro-Pax ship operating on the route from Gothenburg to Frederikshavn is a technically and commercially realistic alternative.