A keel laying ceremony has been held to mark the construction of the first of five electric ferries that will operate on the Swan River in Perth, Western Australia. As previously reported by ship.energy, the vessels are being built as part of the METRONET Swan River Ferry Service Expansion programme. The ferries are being designed and built by shipbuilder Echo Marine Group, which is based in Henderson, near Perth, as part of the AUS 107 million project. The new electric ferries will be able to accommodate up to 100 passengers, have a maximum operating speed of 25 knots, and are designed […]

The Port of Long Beach has authorised $58.2 million for the purchase and deployment of zero-emission technology and cleaner harbour vessels. The Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners approved the expenditure, part of a larger grant from California’s State Transportation Agency for System-Wide Investment in Freight Transport (SWIFT), on Monday (22 June). The investment will allow tenants and operators to deploy six zero-emission and five ‘cleaner’ harbour craft that displace older diesel engines. It will also enable the acquisition of 61 units of zero-emission, human-operated cargo-handling equipment, along with 21 chargers to power them; as well as advance one zero-emission locomotive. ‘Expanding our clean technology […]

A new EU-supported initiative, AWESOME (Advanced Wind Energy System Optimisation & Monitoring for Efficiency), has launched in Brussels today (25 June) with the aim of providing shipowners with verified performance data, practical tools and standardised methods for assessing wind-assisted propulsion systems (WAPS). The project, which is supported by some €9 million in funding from Horizon Europe, is led by Kongsberg Maritime and includes 14 partners across Europe. One of its key concerns will be to address the technical, operational and regulatory barriers that still hold back the wider deployment of wind propulsion. AWESOME will test how wind propulsion can be […]