Seaspan Ferries chooses Corvus' ESS

Photo: Seaspan Ferries

The Canadian shipping line will have each of its two hybrid liquefied natural gas-battery ro-ros, currently under construction, furnished with the 2,034 kWh Orca Energy storage system from Corvus.

"Seaspan Ferries is striving to gain maximum efficiencies with our new fleet which are larger than our existing vessels. The additional cargo takes more time to load," Harly Penner, Director of Fleet Engineering & Vessel Development, Seaspan Ferries, said.

"The only chance to make up time the increased time from loading is with vessel speed. Instead of putting in larger engines to allow for greater speed and faster acceleration and deceleration, we're going to use batteries to share the higher load and assist during manoeuvring," he explained.

The batteries will be delivered through Aspin Kemp and Associates, a Canadian company that designs, manufactures, installs, and supports innovative power generation and energy management solutions for marine and land-based industries in strategic partnership with MAN Energy Solutions.

This is the second pair of ferries that Seaspan has equipped with Corvus batteries. Seaspan Reliant and Seaspan Swift went into operation in 2017 with 546 kWh-strong systems on-board. According to the parties, these saved Seaspan the cost of an additional engine for spinning reserve as well as improved fuel efficiency by 9-10%.

"We are very pleased that Seaspan has again selected a Corvus energy storage system," Sveinung Odegard, VP Sales, North American, Corvus, commented.

He added, "Corvus may be a global leader in marine energy storage solutions, but we are very committed to the local marine industry as well. We firmly believe the North American market will grow in the coming years. For that reason, we are proud to deliver Canadian batteries on board Canadian vessels alongside a Canadian integrator."

Corvus has to date supplied 230 MWh of its energy storage solution. The Orca Energy system is Type Approved by Bureau Veritas; DNV GL, ABS, and RINA have also acknowledged the technology by issuing Type or Class Approval certificates for the system.