Boreal Sjø electric ferries equipped with Volvo Penta HVO gensets

Boreal Sjø, a Boreal Norge subsidiary company, will operate the 35-m, 350-passenger ferries to-and-from the islands in the inner Oslo fjord running scheduled services throughout the day.

The new ferries will replace the Boreal group’s existing diesel fleet and are part of Norway’s plan to electrify all passenger transport on Norwegian waters.

The ferries will recharge at dockside where possible, with the batteries gaining additional electric propulsion from running the Volvo Penta gensets as needed. Each generator set will supply 265 kWe electrical power.

The gensets connect to the ferries’ own control systems and are approved to run on HVO – EN 15940, a fossil-free fuel the company says reduces CO₂ emissions and particulate matter by up to 90%.

Volvo Penta offers an IMO III engine range for Volvo Penta IPS, diesel inboard, marine genset, and auxiliary applications based on selective catalytic reduction (SCR) – an advanced emissions control technology.

The SCR after-treatment systems – fitted on the engines and gensets – ensure high engine power and efficiency while reducing nitrogen oxides (NO_x) by up to 75%. The systems are built to cope with high sulphur fuel and sustain high backpressure while maintaining engine efficiency.

Sales project manager Jacob Vierø said in addition to the SCR-based IMO III gensets being extremely compact, the systems “offer greater efficiency, as they are designed from the start to work together. This ‘one-stop-shop’ approach allows us to package all the componentry tightly, ensuring easy installation and maintenance.”

The systems are type-approved and developed, certified, monitored and maintained by Volvo Penta. The company will begin supplying its gensets later this year, with the last two gensets delivered by mid-2021.

Service on the ferries will commence in November 2021, according to Boreal Norge. Under construction at Sefine Shipyard in Turkey, the ferries are being built to DNV GL class regulations.