Damen Shipyards Produces First Ever Hybrid Tug Boat

It is not just cars that are trying to cut emissions by using hybrid technologies, ships are also interested in this technology, especially as fuel accounts for a huge portion of shipping costs.

One of the biggest fuel guzzlers, and emissions producers in the nautical world are tug boats; yet alternative sources of energy were just not competitive enough to entice tugboat producers to create hybrid versions…until now.

Damen Shipyards, of the Netherlands, has just launched its first ever diesel electric hybrid tugboat, the ASD Tug 2810 Hybrid.

Damen claims that the new hybrid system will grant the tug diesel fuel savings of 10-30 percent, and even larger emission reductions of 20-60 percent. At which end of the range the tug will perform depends on how its operated, using its diesel-direct engines will obviously use more fuel and release more emission than using the diesel-electric propulsion systems.

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Erik van Schaik, the Design & Proposal engineer at Damen, said that “in the past, many green solutions were simply too expensive for the tugboat market. We were very mindful that this vessel had to cut fuel and emissions, but at the same time it had to be positioned at an attractive price for the market. We wanted to make being green commercially attractive too.”

Damen are also going to produce a battery pack as an additional extra option. The 100kWh battery pack will enable the engines to be completely shut down at times so that the tug can manoeuvre and sail at low speeds purely on its electric motors.

By. Joao Peixe of Oilprice.com