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SAN FRANCISCO — On Thursday, one small ferry boat company made one giant stride for the maritime industry and the environment as the Enhydra, a first-of-its-kind hybrid electric ferry, took its maiden voyage in the San Francisco Bay.
At 128-feet long, carrying up to 600 passengers, the Enhydra is the largest aluminum-hulled passenger vessel built in the United States to be powered with lithium-ion batteries and plug-in electric technology, according to its operator, Red and White Fleet.
It’s the “Prius” of ferry boats, said Tom Escher, the company’s president. He hopes it will serve as a precedent-setting example for what’s possible for electric motors in the maritime industry, which, so far, has been relatively slow to adopt green technology.
“My concern is for your children and your children’s children,” he said. “The environment is not getting any cleaner unless we do something about it.”
Escher took over the sightseeing side of the 126-year-old, family-owned ferry, barge and tugboat business in 1997, he said. Since then, he’s been thinking about ways to improve the efficiency of his fleet and reduce carbon emissions to zero.
Escher was instrumental in prodding Sandia National Laboratories to research ways to outfit boats with motors powered by hydrogen fuel cells, which don’t emit any emissions if the energy used to make the fuel is also renewable. That effort ultimately resulted in the “Water-go-Round,” a hydrogen fuel cell-powered ferry boat Golden Gate Zero Emission Marine plans to build as a demonstration project by the end of next year, another first-in-the-nation project.
But Escher was also interested in what he could do with his own fleet, beginning first by transitioning to biodiesel fuel for all of his ships, including the Enhydra, which will use biodiesel to run a generator when the motor isn’t getting power from its batteries.
Unlike his other ferry boats, the Enhydra’s engine room is quiet. Red and White partnered with Cummins Engines to re-purpose a hybrid electric bus motor for use in a maritime environment and worked with BAE Systems to design the propulsion system. There’s nothing particularly new about the technology, Escher said, only the application.
Built in Bellingham, Washington, the Enhydra arrived in the San Francisco Bay on Sept. 5. It’s maiden voyage Thursday coincides with the Global Climate Action Summit, a three-day conference showcasing the latest zero emissions technologies.
But after that, it’ll be used as part of Red and White Fleet’s sightseeing operation. Ultimately, Escher plans to install a charging facility that will re-power the batteries in nine minutes. For now, though, the company must use a much slower charging outlet and can only run on battery power for about an hour.
Whether other companies catch on remains to be seen. The boat was between 10 and 15 percent more expensive to build than a similar-sized vessel with a diesel engine, but Escher projects it’ll pay off in the long-run.
Red and White will benefit from stable electricity prices, which aren’t nearly as volatile as diesel and gas. And, maintenance costs are also projected to be lower than typical diesel engines, he said. Battery technology is rapidly improving, Escher said, meaning replacements will likely be cheaper, too. And all the data about the ferry boat’s operations will be released publicly, he said, so it other companies can learn from it.
“People are gonna say, ‘You’re a small operator and you don’t understand,'” Escher said. “Well, we may be the pimple on the fanny of an elephant, but somebody has to be first. And, we’re gonna lead by example.”
