NES to supply charging stations for ferry operator Fjord1
The route between the two towns is 5.6 kilometres long and crosses the Sognefjord. It is one of the most important ferry connections in the country, transporting 1.2 million cars per year. Fjord1 won the tender for the connection at the end of last year and has been awarded the contract for the period 1 September 2026 to 31 August 2034. Fjord1 will operate the service with four new zero-emission vessels, each with space for 120 cars. The ferries will run every 15 minutes. This is an improvement compared to today, where there are three ships and a 20-minute frequency.
One of the two onshore charging stations will be installed at the jetty in Lavik and the other in Oppedal. The ferries will be fully charged in the harbour in around ten minutes. For the project, NES will deliver two complete charging stations in containers in 2026, including transformers, control panels, control system and data acquisition system, as well as the charging plug that connects the charging stations to the ships.
“Fjord1 is very pleased to enter this agreement with Norwegian Electric Systems for delivery of the charging stations to the Lavik-Oppedal ferry crossing. This partnership represents one of many important steps towards more environmentally friendly ferry operations. We have received similar deliveries in the past and are very satisfied with the cooperation we have with NES,” says Odd Bjarte Johnsen, Fjord1’s project manager.
“We have delivered multiple onshore charging stations in the past, so this is highly familiar territory for NES. That said, these charging stations will be further developed to meet the autonomous operations from the ferries, where also they will have some autonomous functions,” says Siv Remøy-Vangen, Managing Director of NES.
The order for the onshore charging stations is the third that Norwegian Electric Systems has received for the Lavik-Oppedal ferries. In March this year, the Turkish shipbuilder Tersan Shipyard initially commissioned NES as a system integrator to supply complete systems for the power supply, automation and bridge construction, including navigation and communication solutions for the four ferries. At the end of May, ferry operator Fjord1 commissioned NES to develop systems for the automation of ship functions and autonomous navigation for the ferries.
Fjord1 operates more than 80 ships in Norway and is focussing heavily on the electrification of its ferries. In 2021, the company commissioned NES as a system integrator to convert three ferries from gas and diesel propulsion to battery operation. NES supplied the drive systems for five of Fjord1’s electric ferries back in August 2020. Fjord1 ordered seven electric ferries from Havyard in 2018 and five hybrid ferries from NES in 2017.
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