By
Alex Smith |
Wasaline’s Aurora Botnia has successfully completed sea trials following a major battery upgrade.
The vessel’s battery capacity has been expanded from 2.2 megawatt hours to 12.6 megawatt hours, making it the largest battery capacity ever installed on a ropax vessel. The new batteries, supplied by marine battery manufacturer AYK Energy, have been approved for operation by classification society DNV.
The upgrade was begun while the ship was still in regular operation and finalised at BLRT Repair Yards in Finland. Energy solutions provider Wärtsilä completed the systems integration, configuring and updating the ship’s drives for the added batteries. Naval architecture consultancy Foreship completed the evaluation and basic design for the project.
Aurora Botnia’s new battery system has a capacity of 12.6 megawatt hours, five times bigger that its previous capacity (Photo: Wasaline)
“This has been an interesting but also highly demanding project, particularly given the limited timeframe,” said Jonas Teir, technical director of Wasaline. “The entire propulsion system was upgraded during docking, and battery optimisation continued while the vessel was back in operation. We would like to extend our sincere thanks to all partners involved, as well as to Rescue Team Finland for excellent on site assistance with everything from fire watches to installation work, to Tallinn Shipyard for steel and pipe works, and a special thanks to the entire crew especially the technical department onboard for the professionalism and extreme adaptability needed to execute this kind of a project during normal operations.”