Swiss battery manufacturer Leclanché (named for the inventor of the dry cell battery) and Finnish electric drivetrain specialist Visedo have partnered to deliver a powertrain for an electric ferryboat that will be built by Danish shipbuilder Søby Shipyard and put into service in June 2017 between the mainland and Ærø Island.

The ferry will be equipped with a 4.2 MWh Li-ion battery system, making it the world’s largest ferry in terms of battery capacity, according to Leclanché. Charging power of up to 4 MW will allow the boat to be charged during short intervals in port.

CO₂ emissions will be reduced by 2,000 tons per year compared with a legacy diesel ferry. Noise level and wake will also be reduced.

“This project is a breakthrough in the recently introduced mobile storage business,” said Martti Ukkonen, Executive VP of Mobile Storage Systems at Leclanché. “The novel combination of a lithium-ion battery storage system and an electric drivetrain has proven to be a true asset in the mobile system market, and not only in the marine segment.”

Leclanché and Visedo announced a strategic cooperation in May, to develop a plug-and-play drivetrain system applicable to buses and other heavy vehicles. The first joint project will be an electric bus project for a European city. The system has been successfully tested, and the customer has committed to order a fleet of 30 to 50 electric drivetrains starting in 2016, each including 30 to 50 kWh of batteries.

Source: ChargedEVs