HANSA 05-2019

Schiffstechnik | Ship Technology
A colorful hybrid
The charge is building up: The progress of the »Color Hybrid« ship construction in spring
2019 has been steady, and the plug-in hybrid vessel is getting prepared to enter service in
June with a lot of innovative technology on board
For a long time, Ulstein Verft’s yard
number 311, the »Color Hybrid«, has
been hiding in the dock hall. Now it has
been painted and launched. The delivery
is scheduled for May 2019 to enter service
in June, so the waiting for the world’s
largest plug-in hybrid vessel will be over
soon. The environmentally sound ship
will be servicing the 38nm route between
Sandefjord – Strømstad (crossing time
2,5 hours) from summer 2019. Ulstein
won the contract in competition with several
other yards. In Februabry 2017, Color
Line and Ulstein Verft signed the contract
on construction of the 30,000 GT ship designed
by Fosen Yard.
The new RoPax cruiseferry uses new
solutions to reduce noise and emissions.
The vessel features a diesel-electric plugin
hybrid concept with PTO/PTI allowing
for hybrid propulsion using both direct-drive
and electric. Siemens batteries
installed in four battery rooms in the machinery
area deliver a combined capacity
of 4.7 MWh.
At vessel speeds up to 12 kn, the
5 MWh battery package weighing almost
70 t is going to allow for 60 minutes
of fully electric operation. In normal
operation the vessel’s top speed is 17 kn.
The battery system was delivered by Siemens,
who manufactured the batteries at
its new production facility in Trondheim.
Siemens is well-known for being a key
supplier for ferry operator Scandlines’
hybrid ferry »Berlin« (196 m, 1,600 lane
meters), which is in service in the Baltic
since 2016 and uses batteries with a
combined capacity of 4.5 MWh. The energy
management system for this vessel
and her sister ship »Copenhagen« already
came from Siemens, while the batteries
came from Corvus Energy.
The batteries are recharged via a power
cable with »green« electricity from
shore facilities or, as a secondary alternative,
recharged on board by the ship’s
generators. With shore power provided
in Sandefjord, all Norwegian ports
on Color Line’s network will have shore
power facilities. The ship will have full
battery power into and out of the fjord to
Sandefjord inner harbour. It will therefore
not give emissions of harmful greenhouse
gases or nitrogen and sulphur compounds
in this area.
The ship is equipped with four Rolls-
Royce Bergen B33:45L in-line diesel engines
of which two are B:33:45L6 (six cylinders,
3,600 kW) and two are B33:45L8
(eight cylinders, 4,800 kW). The four engines
were delivered in March 2018, the
contract came with an option to provide
engines for a second vessel. The »Color
Hybrid’s« engine and energy layout also
features a waste-heat recovery system.
Norwegian company Brunvoll supplied
the propulsion package including
controllable pitch propellers and tunnel
thrusters, gearboxes, rudders and steering
gear. Besides the two CP-propellers,
Brunvoll delivered two fixed-pitch propeller
tunnel thrusters and one rim-driven,
permanent magnet tunnel thruster as
well as control systems for propulsion,
positioning and manoeuvring.
A »local« project
Steel cutting started in July 2017, in April
2018 Crist shipyard in Gdynia, Poland,
began to assemble the 14 blocks of the
ship’s hull. After the hull was completed
it was then towed to Ulsteinvik in November
2018 for outfitting.
According to Ulstein, »Color Hybrid«
is a good example of the interaction in the
© Color Line
14
HANSA International Maritime Journal 05 | 2019 NorShipping