Ship designer Western Baltic launched two new electric pusher designs at Work Boat New Orleans
Lithuanian shipbuilder Western Baltic Engineering (WBE) will unveil two new fashions of its groundbreaking electric “push” sequence of vessels, generally known as ELECTRIC EEL, at the Work Boat present in New Orleans to assist decarbonize America’s huge inland waterway community.
The ships are the most recent editions to the primary sequence of battery-powered “pushers” ever designed. The newest vessels, generally known as the EE20 and EE26, are tailored from the unique EE27 mannequin that WBE launched in August. They supply totally different capabilities, together with the flexibility to “pull”, in addition to larger energy and vary skills.
Chris Cowan, WBE senior gross sales supervisor, says the vessels at Work Boat are being launched as a result of they’re appropriate for a lot of America’s in depth inland waterway community, which is beneath larger strain to scale back emissions beneath US Environmental Protection Agency rules ( EPA) and the IMO greenhouse fuel targets. He referred to analysis by ABS (see Notes to Editors 1) which estimates that ships on US inland waterways emitted 5.67 billion kilograms of CO2 in 2018 from round 4,000 tugboats, towing 25,000 barges and carrying 630 million tons of cargo to 25,000 Miles of waterway have hauled annually.
“We are very excited to introduce these latest designs to Work Boat,” he mentioned. “We see enormous potential for ships designed in Lithuania and then built in US shipyards. We have adjusted our design in response to market demand in Europe following the launch of the EE27 in August this year. The EE27 is scheduled to be built for the Lithuanian Inland Waterways Authority next year. But to operate on the Danube and Rhine we realized that the design needed to be adaptable, especially for the deeper waters. With greater capabilities, the designs can be deployed in the deeper rivers around America, and fit with the US push to move to more electric-powered vehicles.”
Chris mentioned the Electric Eel idea captures the creativeness of barge operators.
“Since the launch of the EE20, we’ve had an excellent response,” he mentioned. “But some operators wanted other features. As a result, both the EE20 and EE26 models are innovated to meet specific customer requirements. Remarkably, both can operate in deeper water with drafts of 2.5m and 2.6m respectively compared to 1.2m for the EE27. In addition, both new vessels will have greater performance as four TEU-sized battery containers will be installed instead of two, increasing range capacity from 300 km to 375 km, while the EE26 can push or tow two 1600-ton barges and the EE20 can push 2500 tons compared to 2000 tons on the EE27.”
Chris mentioned the EE26 is probably the most radical addition to the sequence to date, as it should supply each a ‘pull’ and ‘push’ operate for maneuvering unpowered barges. As a results of the design improvements, all fashions are actually powered by a methanol backup generator that may utterly substitute or complement battery energy as wanted, offering a protected resolution for returning to port.
The ELECTRIC EEL sequence of vessels has been developed to substitute diesel pushers which presently dominate the marketplace for ‘pushing’ non-powered barges on inland waterways. Pressure continues to mount from the European Union, which needs to shift cargo to Europe’s inland waterways through extra environmentally pleasant vessels (see Notes to Editors). On the Danube alone, a fleet of 332 diesel push boats push greater than 2000 barges.
The ELECTRIC EEL sequence is powered by batteries developed by Andorra-based AYK Energy, which just lately signed a design partnership with WBE. Chris Kruger, President of AYK, confirmed that the new partnership will concentrate on deploying the Aries+ mannequin’s 17.6 KW hour Li-Ion batteries, with the potential to develop to the 23.3 KW -Hour Centarus and Aquarius traces to be expanded.
Source: Western Baltic Engineering.