Elektra, Finland’s first purpose-built battery electric ferry, operates on a 1MWh battery system supplied by PBES and celebrates its first year of service this month.
“Many of the unique characteristics of its performance are directly a result of the PBES technology onboard. CellCoolTM technology allows the battery to be recharged in 5 minutes and at end of life it is easily refurbished and upgraded using the PBES CellSwapTM system,” said Grant Brown, Vice President Marketing at PBES
Industry kudos
Elektra has an overall length of 98m, beam of 15m and draft of 3.55m, with five lanes to accommodate up to 90 cars.
The vessel travels its 1.6 km route across the Finnish Archipelago year-round. Due to heavy ice conditions in the winter months, it carries auxiliary power generation equipment to augment the battery when needed.
It’s not the only industry accolade for Elektra this year. The ferry also won the international Ship of the Year Award at the marine industry’s Sulphur Cap 2020 Conference in Amsterdam.
It was up against stiff competition from the LNG vessels Cardissa from Shell and Christophe de Margerie from Sovcomflot.
PBES designs and manufactures high power lithium-ion energy storage and is focused on providing value and safety for industrial, marine and grid energy storage applications.
Source: Greenport