Richmond, B.C.'s Corvus Energy selected to supply electric energy for UK ferries

Richmond, British Columbia battery systems provider Corvus Energy Inc. has been selected by Finnish marine energy power source company Wärtsilä to supply lithium-ion energy storage systems (ESS) for a new hybrid ferry currently being built for UK-based Wightlink Ferries.
Corvus Energy’s Orca Energy ESS will complement Wärtsilä’s equipment and propulsion systems to drive the Wightlink Ferries vessel to improve energy efficiency, reduce exhaust and lower noise levels, making it both the new flagship ferry for Wightlink and the most environmentally friendly vessel in its fleet.
“This new environmentally friendly ferry represents our third major vessel project with Wärtsilä and we are pleased that the industry leading innovation in safety, reliability and performance of Orca ESS is being recognized as the future of hybrid marine power,” said Halvard Hauso, EVP Sales & Marketing of Corvus Energy based in Bergen, Norway. “Orca is not only the industry’s safest and highest performing maritime ESS, it also makes great environmental and economic sense.”
The Wightlink Ferries vessel will enter into service in 2018, and will serve the crossing between the Isle of Wight and the English mainland 20 times per day, holding up to 178 vehicles and more than 1,000 passengers.
The Orca ESS product line is not a single product, but a range of products designed to provide large amounts of energy for ferries and merchant marine vehicles.
The Orca ESS portfolio has been designed and built based on feedback from more than 50 projects, totaling over 35MWh and one million operating hours, for applications requiring the ability to seamlessly respond to dynamic power loads, ranging from offshore supply vessels to port equipment.
Earlier this month, Corvus Energy announced that it will receive up to $469,500 in non-repayable funding from the National Research Council of Canada’s Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP) to develop and expand the company’s next generation line of Orca ESS power solutions.
Corvus Energy has also worked on a wide variety of projects, providing energy storage systems for offshore supply vessels and on-board full-scale electric propulsion systems for ferries such as the MF Ampere in Norway, the first of a new generation of highly efficient electric ferries, in addition to house power and shore-based, advanced liquid-cooled, fast-charge energy storage.
In June, Grovfjord Mek. Verksted AS (GMV) selected Corvus Energy to supply a lithium-ion based Orca energy storage system for a fish farm support vessel called GMV ZERO, supplying its energy requirements for a zero emission fish farm operation in Norway.
Earlier this month, General Electric’s Power Conversion business selected the Orca ESS to integrate into merchant, naval and offshore applications at GE’s marine power test facility and customer demonstration center.