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Autonomous, electric cargo ship will make first voyage this year

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Autonomous, electric cargo ship will make first voyage this year

It will transport its first container from the town of Herøya to Brevik in Norway

A zero-emission cargo ship that can pilot itself, built by Norway's Yara International, is set to embark on its first voyage this year.

Called Yara Birkeland, the fully electric ship was originally due to set sail in 2020, but the launch was delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic and some logistical challenges, which have now been overcome.

Jon Sletten, plant manager for Yara's factory in Porsgrunn, Norway, told CNN that the ship is now ready to make its first journey between two Norwegian towns before the end of the year.

"We overestimated the scope of it in the beginning and started with too many activities in parallel," Sletten said.

Eventually the team realised that adopting a step-by-step approach, rather than a fast track mode, would be better move.

Sletten is now confident that the Yara Birkeland will successfully transport its first container from the town of Herøya to Brevik this year.

There will be no crew onboard during the journey; instead, its movement will be monitored from three control centres onshore: a change from earlier plans, which said the ship would be crewed for the first two years of operations.

Yara International, the ship's owner, first revealed the plan to build a battery-powered, autonomous vessel in 2017, a year after Norway opened up the world's first designated testing area for autonomous ships.

CEO Svein Tore Holsether said at the time that the company saw battery technology as an opportunity to get rid of toxic emissions altogether.

"With this new autonomous battery-driven container vessel we move transport from road to sea and thereby reduce noise and dust emissions, improve the safety of local roads, and reduce NOx and CO2 emissions," Holsether said in 2018.

Yara International built the Yara Birkeland in partnership with technology firm Kongsberg Maritime and shipbuilder Vard.

The ship is 70m long and 14m wide, able to carry sixty 40' shipping containers. It features a 7 MWh battery capacity to power two 900 kW Azipull pods and two 700 kW tunnel thrusters, delivering a top speed of 13 knots.

Initially, loading and unloading the ship will require humans, but in the long term, all loading, discharging, and mooring operations will be completed using autonomous technology.

Yara Birkeland will be charged at the quayside before visiting harbours along the coast and then back again.

The company believes the ship will replace 40,000 truck journeys a year.

Autonomous, electric cargo ship will make first voyage this year

It will transport its first container from the town of Herøya to Brevik in Norway

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