A futuristic electric ferry sails in the fjords of Norway

Norway leads an electric ferry revolution

January 27, 2019February 4, 2020 Jeff Butler 8656 Views 0 Comments Norway, The Gussies

The world of large commercial boat electrification is being led by Norway electric ferries, which were first introduced to the country in 2014 when one of the country’s major ferry companies, Norled, announced the world’s first fully electric battery powered car ferry. Now electric ferries are becoming the latest must-have for one of the world’s most maritime-travel intense nations.

If you’ve ever seen a map of Norway, you’ll know that ferries are a big deal. It’s coastline has thousands of fjord inlets, and if you take into account all of them, it has 25,148 km of coastline – the 8th longest in the world. Just behind Australia (25,760) and well ahead of The U.S. (19,924) and China (14,500).

a long electric car ferry with Norway's fjords in the background

Named ‘Ampere’ after the unit of electric current, it went into service in June of 2015 and in its first two years sailed a distance equivalent to 4 times around the Equator, racking it up 6 km at a time by shuttling back and forth between two little ports called Lavik and Oppedal.

The boat stops for only 10 minutes at each end, and using a charger from Corvus Energy it gets an electric top up in those 10 minutes and a full re-charge overnight. It makes 34 crossings a day. With no fossil fuel expenses. No wonder Norled’s competitors want one.

Others jumping on electric ferry future

The largest ferry operator in Norway – Fjord 1 – ordered en electric ferry from the same class as Ampere – ZeroCat – but of course it boasts higher speeds and carries more cars and people. Ferries and passenger boats run by Fjord1 carry 10.5 million vehicles and 21.5 million passengers a year.

And these aren’t the only electric ferries in the country:

in late January Fjord 1 received a delivery of two Turkey-manufactured electric ferries
the country’s public transport provider Boreal has one on order
on the scenic touring side of things a 400 passenger catamaran “Future of the Fjords” will start cruising the waters of the country’s famously majestic fjords in April (see video below)
and Siemens sees the market as so promising that it is moving its battery production for electric marine vessels to Norway this spring

Beyond that, they also look pretty neat.