LTO Batteries For Copenhagen’s Zero-Emissions Ferries

Echandia Marine, a Swedish supplier of batteries and fuel cell systems for marine and rail systems, announced the delivery of its DNV-GL certified lithium-titanium oxide (LTO) battery systems for five zero-emission passenger ferries in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Appointed by Movia, the country’s public transport provider, Damen Shipyards is supplying the vessels and selected Echandia Marine to provide the energy systems for the project. Daman worked with several suppliers, including Eekels, Heliox and Staubli, to develop an auto-mooring system designed to ensure a secure connection between the vessel and charging infrastructure.

The project marks Echandia Marine’s full commercial launch of its newest battery system, which was developed using Toshiba’s SCiB technology. The Toshiba SCiB is designed to prevent thermal runaway resulting from short circuiting caused by physical stress and can exceed 20,000 charge/discharge cycles. It offers fast charging times, input/output current densities comparable with capacitors and can operate at temperatures as low as -30°C, the company said.

“With Toshiba’s long experience of LTO batteries, we can offer our customer a safe, reliable, cost-effective battery system,” said Echandia’s CEO Magnus Eriksson. “We currently work exclusively with LTO batteries. We are proud that after extensive investigations into environmental performance, cost-efficiency, optimal passenger experience and reliability, Damen Shipyards ultimately chose Echandia’s LTO battery system.”

According to Damen, the ferries reduce Copenhagen’s public transport NOX emissions by 2.5%, CO2 emissions by 10% and particulate emissions by 66%. The ferries are silent and need to be charged for just seven minutes after each journey, negating the need for longer charging periods which take the ferries out of service.

The ferries cover passenger routes in the central metropolitan area of Copenhagen as well as to the port area.