Page 54: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (September 2022)

TECH FEATURE ELECTRIFICATION eWolf: It’s Electric

With progress being made on the U.S.’ ? rst fully electric tugboat for Crowley, Ed Schwarz and Dave Lee of ABB, provide an update on this high-pro? le project and overview of the advent of electri? cation in maritime.

Schwarz Lee

By Greg Trauthwein

What are ABB’s deliverables for early on to develop a design and build available to the ferry operators in the the eWolf project? philosophy speci? cally for a vessel like U.S., a signi? cant investment in new

Dave Lee: We are delivering the full this. The entire team engaged with the construction with an emphasis on decar- propulsion system, the power system, US Coast Guard early on, too. What I bonization. Now, it’s linked to speci? c for this vessel. We’re going from the would stress to any operator, owner, opportunities for speci? c projects with batteries through our own ABB onboard or shipyard (that is considering buying funding deadlines.

DC grid, transformers, UPSs, motors, or building an electric tug) is now that So this last 12 months has been a shift

L-drive thrusters, and all kinds of oth- these are electrical battery systems are from advocacy and general industry er small parts to make the full system (a major feature) of the vessel, it’s a dif- education to really speci? c opportunity work, including automation. A cool part ferent vessel from the bare bones. It’s pursuit, much faster than we thought it of our delivery is our ABB marine pilot the propulsion integration and the pro- was going to be. vision and pilot control system, and this pulsion system that needs to be thought is actually the second tug that will have of ? rst, and then let’s (design) the vessel What do you see as the key this system installed on. (The ? rst is in around it. drivers to increase the uptake of operation in Singapore). electri? cation in maritime?

How often is electiric a part of ES: The largest driver is the decarbon-

Can you discuss the importance your conversations with design- ization movement. Owners are saying, of the control system? ers, owners and builders? “I need to do something that’s more

DL: I’m an old mechanical engineer, so Ed Schwarz: I joined ABB ? ve years sustainable to maintain my business’

I love those big boxes with all of the cool ago, tasked with looking at hybridiza- competitiveness in the future, so let me lights on the front of them, but that’s tion and decarbonization. Knowing how look into it.” And then what they’re do- only part of the story. What’s making all traditional the maritime industry is, I ing is then they’re seeing these OPEX (of those systems) work together is au- was pretty conservative in (my projec- savings, and these additional bene? ts of tomation in the background. The impor- tions with) how quickly things were going electric. tant thing to note is eWolf is a tug, not an going to move in this direction. I was They’re really being driven by reduc- ocean going vessel, where you are going completely wrong! It’s moving very ing emissions, by being more sustain- point A to point B, with a slow ramp up quickly for a lot of reasons, and look- able, by regulatory requirements that and a slow ramp down. With a tug, you ing at the last 12 months, there’s been a are coming down in the future. On the never know where you’re going to be on lot of conversations on decarbonization. marine side, we bene? t from the larger the sticks. You may be 50% one second, Previously, it was a lot of conversations industrial movements. General equip- then, all of a sudden, you need to go full in theory, so it would be vessel owners ment’s not designed for marine, it is of astern. We had to tweak that system of large ? eets saying, “I’m going to be modi? ed for marine applications. All to make sure it can respond accordingly. building new vessels over the next ? ve industries, all transportation is moving years. What should I do? We’re looking towards decarbonization and becoming

Can you share some lesson at very wide solutions path. Could it be electric, and marine is going along with learned that would be of interest alternative fuel? Is it energy storage?” that trend. Companies like ABB design to anyone considering mulling This last 12 months has changed to systems that are smaller, cheaper and an electric tug? very project speci? c discussions, which more robust to be applied to all these

DL: Master Boat Builders, and Crow- is encouraging. This is for a few differ- different applications that can then also ley Engineering Services partnered ent reasons, one being funding that’s be used in marine applications.

54 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • September 2022

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