Electrifying the Ferry Industry

This unsung workhorse of mobility is evolving.

Source: Candela

"The global ferry industry is similar in size to the commercial airline industry, transporting approximately 4.27 billion passengers per year, plus 373 million vehicles (including cars, buses and trailers)."

+Ferry Industry Facts - Interferry

The ferry industry is one of those underappreciated workhorses of mobility. You don't hear much about it, yet it moves about the same number of people each year as the commercial airline industry.  

As anyone who has commuted by ferry knows, the experience is a great break from routine.

First, you get the joy of the smells of the sea and the anticipation of riding on a boat, glad to be out of the car or off the subway. If the weather is right, you head to the upper deck to let the sea air envelope you as seagulls call in the background.

Ah, the sailor's life for me!  

And that's when the diesel fumes hit you. Maybe, cough, I'll go inside. Cough, cough.

I'm sure there have been plenty of innovations in terms of technology and efficiency in ferries over the years, but nothing has really made headlines (as far as I could tell). That's beginning to change as new electric technologies start to gain adoption in ferries around the world.  

Ferries make an attractive market for electrification. Unlike their ocean-going cousins or the airplanes they match in terms of quantity of people moved, they travel short, predictable routes and touch shore regularly.  

This article caught my eye this week, but it represents a relatively niche use case - a power company using the ferry to transport employees back and forth to its facility on an impeccably clean lake in New Zealand.

+World's cleanest lake is getting a new flying electric hydrofoil ferry - electrek

That's certainly great, but it's not a big deal from a global decarbonization perspective.

When I think of this example, I think more about the rainbow sheen on the water around any boat dock and that diesel-fumed air. Why not further protect such a pristine environment from the oils and fuels that inevitably make their way into the water from boats? 

But a big carbon impact? Like I said, it seems pretty niche.

This left me wondering: What is the state of the larger ferry industry when it comes to electrification?

As it turns out, quite a bit…

Ferries Are Great for Electrification

Norway introduced the first all-electric ferry in 2015, and this was no 30-person water taxi. MV Ampere is an 80-meter (260-foot) car ferry that makes 35 trips a day, carrying up to 120 cars and 350 passengers.

There are now 80 fully electric or hybrid ferries in service in the country.

Like aviation, shipping's place in the list of "hard to abate" sectors is secure.  

Long-distance shipping is just not a good fit for electrification. That industry is forced to deal with alternative fuels and all of the R&D, shipbuilding investment, and fuel delivery infrastructure that it entails. We're talking billions of dollars and a long transition period.

Ferries, on the other hand, generally make short, point-to-point round trips on a regular schedule. This gives them regular access to charging points, and charge times have declined to 10 minutes in some cases.

The Ellen, also based in Norway, makes the longest regular route by an e-ferry (22 nautical miles) and requires just 20 minutes to recharge fully.

A Hybrid Transition

As you can imagine, there is still a gap between available transportation technology and charging infrastructure in ferries (just like automobiles).

When fast charging isn't available, the technology exists where battery packs provide a buffer between the ferry and the power source. These "buffer packs" charge slowly as the grid allows but then dump power quickly onto the ferry's battery packs.

Alternatively, when NYC ordered its first electric ferry in 2023, it went the hybrid route.

"The ferry will have the ability to operate either fully on battery power or in dual-power mode. The battery-assist mode will allow the new ferry to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 600 tons annually. Future plans for rapid vessel charging installation will enable the ferry to operate with zero-emission battery-only propulsion, at which point emissions will drop to nearly zero."

+New York City to Commission its First Hybrid, Electric Ferry in 2024 - Maritime Executive

Long Life, Rapid Payback

One of the things that plagues heavy industries is the long life of the assets they invest in. When NYC gets its new ferry in 2024, it will replace the diesel-powered Lt. Samuel S. Coursen, which has been in continuous service since 1956.

Sixty-year asset lives mean that ferries replaced in the last 20-30 years still have a lot of life left in them. However, the operational economics may help speed up the replacement rate.  

The growth of the ferry market is also working to accelerate adoption despite existing inventory. I don't know if this reflects the market as a whole. Still, New York has experienced double the demand for ferry commuting options than projected. When NYC Ferry was launched in 2017, expectations were for 4.6 million riders once all the routes were fully rolled out.

"However, NYC Ferry carried 3.7 million passengers in its first year, with only four routes operating—and only two of them running for the entire 12 months. Updated projections based on the first year of service now show that demand could reach as high as 9 million riders per year by 2023."

+Ferry Now Planning for 9 Million Annual Riders, Growing to Meet Demand - NYC.gov

The economics of electric ferries are becoming clearer now that early adopters have a few years of operations under their belts. The bottom line is that electric ferries are cheaper to both operate and maintain.  

While they cost more upfront, the early Norwegian examples have shown a payback period of that premium of just 4-8 years. Not bad for an asset with such a long operational lifespan.

Don’t Forget the Clean Air, Clean Water

Ferries, like trains, already represent an incredibly efficient form of transportation from a carbon emissions standpoint.  

Based on UK government data, this graph from Our World in Data shows ferries at the bottom of the carbon emissions per traveler ranking.

However, the electrification of ferries represents a fantastic case for air quality improvements in coastal areas, especially dense urban cities.  

They are also a way to minimize the impact on near-shore water quality. Most of the oil polluting our oceans comes from what are called "non-point sources." This means that despite their dramatic and immediate consequences, oil spills aren't the worst culprits. 

It is the accumulation of the leakages of millions of combustion engines around the planet. (This is an often undiscussed impact of electric vehicles on the road and on the water as well.)

Our shorelines are critical natural habitats, but they are also the ones we interact with the most directly.

A Transition for the Long Haul

The long life and heavy upfront investment in ferries mean that it will take decades to turn over the fleet of over 15,000 ferries in operation.  

But the advancements being made, the natural fit for this mode of transportation, the availability of a hybrid transition mechanism, and the raw economics mean that going electric in the future will be a no-brainer.