Largest Battery-Electric Container Ship Now Operating — You Know Where
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Powering very large ships with batteries may seem difficult and expensive. But don’t jump to conclusions too quickly. Battery prices have come down a ton in recent years, energy density has improved greatly, and a bit of creativity using swappable batteries makes it all the easier and more efficient. And now, it’s being done with an extremely large container ship — in China, of course.
When I saw the news on this recently, I sort of skipped over it because I thought we had already covered it. However, we actually covered it a year ago. In July 2023, Mike Barnard wrote about this battery-powered container ship and its 1,000-kilometer route on the Yangtze River. The news now is simply that the electric container ship has begun regular operations. So, it’s happening.
I’m not going to do a better job than Mike did of explaining why this electric container ship using swappable batteries is such a good idea, so go read that article for more details and analysis. However, here are a few snippets:
“There are really obvious solutions to big problems. One of those solutions is putting batteries in shipping containers and winching them on and off ships to power electric drivetrains. Recharge the containers on land in transshipment ports and winch them onto the next ship or train that needs one.
“I’ve been projecting this as a core part of my decade-by-decade maritime repowering scenario through 2100. In my opinion, all inland shipping and two-thirds of short sea shipping will be fully electric. […]
“The Yangzhou shipyard in northern China, inland from Shanghai on the Yangtze River, just launched an electric-drive-only 700 container ship which will ply a regular 1,000-km (600-mile) route up and down the river and to the world’s largest container port on the Yellow Sea.
“It’s not going to run all the way on batteries it carries onboard, of course. Battery energy density is increasingly good and will be multiples of today’s in the coming years, but steaming 1,000 km upstream, even in the 3.6-kilometer-per-hour average water speed of the Yangtze, is a huge energy requirement. It doesn’t have to, as there are 30 container ports along the 2,700 kilometers of navigable waterway (about twice the length of the Mississippi and three times the length of the Rhine).”
This ship comes from China Ocean Shipping Group (Cosco) and is named Greenwater 01. It’s got a battery capacity of 50,000 kWh, but that already incomprehensible number could be expanded to even 80,000 kWh. The ship is 120 meters long and 24 meters wide. (At this point of the Olympics, we should all be thinking in meters, but in feet that’s 393.7 feet long and 78.7 feet wide.
“The freight capacity of the Greenwater 01 is 700 TEU, with one TEU corresponding to a 20-foot standard container,” electrive writes. “According to Cosco, this means that the Greenwater 01 not only sets world records for the length, width and load capacity of a battery-electric ship, but also for container capacity.”
Expect to see more electric ships in the next few years, and who knows — maybe this ship’s record won’t last long and we’ll have a larger 100% battery-electric container ship soon.
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