Page 19: of Marine News Magazine (December 2017)

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when this will become common on workboat platforms and if so, which ones?

We believe Hybrid and EV tech- nology will be a very signi? cant path forward. Battery technology will con- tinue to drive progress in a number of industries including automotive, aero- space, and certainly marine. We are already seeing hybrid projects ranging from research vessel and coastal ship- ping newbuilds in the United States and to 1,100 passenger RoPax ferry conversions in Scandinavia. Over 2.5 megawatts of battery power has been installed in single vessel installations.

We need to ask a simple question: is the combustion engine dead? The technology had a fantastic run and we see that slow death occurring in the automotive industry as sales of electric vehicles rise. Britain in fact has just an- nounced that all new cars must be zero emission by 2050. GM believes their entire product line could be EV or

Hybrid within 5 years. Hybrids have a number of distinct advantages par- ticularly well suited to vessels with di- verse operating pro? les. Vessels such as

PSVs, OSVs, research vessels and oth- ers which operate with distinct transit and station keeping or standby periods can utilize energy stored in batteries to avoid idling and underutilized electric and propulsion plants. Such operation is quiet and virtually emission free.

Maintenance and fuel costs are further reduced. Look to energy storage com- panies like Corvus Energy and Spears to lead the way on the battery level.

BAE Hybrid has been in this market for years in the mass transit market and has been our selected system man- ufacturer on several marine projects on the coastal front. Our Harbor Harvest

Federal Marine Highway project will employ BAE Hybridrive as our pro- pulsion’s system with Cummins and

Corvus Energy. www.marinelink.com MN 19