Page 34: of Marine News Magazine (April 2024)

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Feature

Electric Tugs

All images courtesy Eric Haun

The eWolf’s power integrates into eWolf features a 6.2 MWh Orca

ABB’s DC grid architecture, which battery energy storage system distributes to all the consumers from Corvus Energy.

throughout the vessel. 12 to 16 inches. If you’ve got 14 inches and the bend rate’s between partners is key to the success of any project, but 13 inches, you’ve got a really, really tight spot and dif? culty in particular something like the eWolf that is this technical getting the cable in.” and ? rst-of-its-kind.” “On the eWolf, there’s high voltage everywhere,” Rice

The cost of slashing emissions said. “We really had to think through how to make sure

Notably, the eWolf is an expensive tug. Crowley of? cials we have separation of cables, more so than we do on a declined to disclose a dollar ? gure, but said the new vessel traditional tug.”

The eWolf turned out to be a learning experience for all costs about double the price of a similarly powered con- of the partners involved in creating it. “From a planning ventional tugboat.

While much of the project funds came from private- and a design standpoint, there’s a lot of nuances that we ly-held Crowley, the project also obtained a signi? cant learned in this tug that we will apply to the next one—dif- ferent things that we have to think about that we typically amount of grant funding aimed at helping maritime com- panies achieve cleaner operations. To bring the eWolf to don’t on a traditional tug,” Rice said.

Rice stressed the importance of teamwork between the life, Crowley partnered with the San Diego County Air

Pollution Control District, the California Air Resources shipyard, electrical integrator, designer and production en-

Board (CARB), the Port of San Diego, the U.S. Environ- gineering team. “Everybody needs to know what each oth- er’s doing as early as possible,” he said. “Early collaboration mental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Maritime 34 | MN April 2024