A quiet revolution has taken place in the Oresund Strait between Sweden and Denmark where two of the world’s largest battery-powered ferries ply the waters after being converted from polluting diesel power. The Tycho Brahe and Aurora ferries operated by Sweden’s ForSea are over 100 meters long and work the busy 4 km crossing between Helsingborg in Sweden and Helsingor in Denmark.
The route handles more than 7 million passengers and almost 2 million vehicles each year with crossings every 15 minutes. Conversion of the two ships involved the installation of 4.16 megawatts of battery power on each ferry as well as shore-based infrastructure. Using industrial robotics and wireless communications to optimize connection times, charging takes less than 6 minutes in Denmark and 9 minutes in Sweden, according to Christian Andersson, a senior chief engineer at ForSea.
